Speaker 1: Welcome to the Women's War, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Americans learned about the world through the lens of war.
Speaker 1: Before Isis emerged, most Americans probably wouldn't have been able
Speaker 1: to tell you what occurred was in any detail. Today,
Speaker 1: if asked, those same Americans would probably say, they're the
Speaker 1: folks who helped us fight ISIS, or maybe they're the
Speaker 1: people Trump just betrayed because modern media cannot abide nuance.
Speaker 1: The Kurds in Iraq and the Kurds in Syria tend
Speaker 1: to get lumped into the same bucket, but Iraki Curtis
Speaker 1: stand and Syrian Rojava are two very different places. The
Speaker 1: Kurdish Autonomous Region in Northern Iraq has its origins in
Speaker 1: ninete one, when the United States and her allies established
Speaker 1: a no fly zone in order to stop Saddam Hussein
Speaker 1: from murdering more Kurdish people. This was maintained in one
Speaker 1: form or another up until the two thousand two invasion.
Speaker 1: As a result, Northern Iraq was spared the worst excesses
Speaker 1: of Saddam's regime. After that point, the Iraqi Kurds were
Speaker 1: given space to build their chunk of country into something
Speaker 1: very much resembling an independent state as a result. While
Speaker 1: most of the country fell into violent chaos after the
Speaker 1: U S invasion, Northern Iraq blossomed. Its local militious collectively
Speaker 1: referred to as the Peshmerga, succeeded in providing an exceptional
Speaker 1: degree of security, and with security came economic investment. Over
Speaker 1: the course of a decade, Iraqi Kurdistan built rapidly and
Speaker 1: capitalized on their substantial oil reserves. Skyscrapers went up all
Speaker 1: around the capital their bill and for a time, pundits
Speaker 1: claimed the city would soon be the Middle East's next Tobai.
Speaker 1: That dream came crashing to the ground in two thousand
Speaker 1: fourteen when Isis invaded. Investment money dried up, construction halted abruptly.
Speaker 1: The city has recovered somewhat today, but its skyline is
Speaker 1: still dotted with dozens of skeletal skyscrapers forever abandoned. The
Speaker 1: fault for this is not purely with Isis. Outrageous corruption
Speaker 1: within the Kurdish Regional Government or k r G also
Speaker 1: played a role. The Kurdish Regional Government is, on its face,
Speaker 1: a democratic system, one where women are guaranteed thirty of
Speaker 1: the seats in the one and eleven seat regional parliament. Now,
Speaker 1: the the KRG Kurdish Regional Government is separate but technically
Speaker 1: subordinate to the government in Baghdad. The closest parallel in
Speaker 1: American politics would probably be to compare the Kara Ge
Speaker 1: to something like a Native American reservation. Although it's it's
Speaker 1: still a lot different than that um Iraqi. Kurdistan is independent,
Speaker 1: though in in a lot of the ways that matter,
Speaker 1: but not all of them. It's still rely on funding
Speaker 1: from Baghdad and the like, but they have their own
Speaker 1: military force, the Peschi Marka, who are made up from
Speaker 1: the militias of the two largest political parties in the region.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like if the Republican and Democratic
Speaker 1: parties each controlled half the military, and it works about
Speaker 1: as well as you'd expect that to work. Now, everyone
Speaker 1: who spends any amount of time in Iraq will agree
Speaker 1: that the kaya Ge is much better at running things
Speaker 1: than the government in Baghdad. But considering the Baghdad government
Speaker 1: spent the winter of two thousand nineteen machine gunning protesters,
Speaker 1: this is a pretty low bar. No bis, this gets
Speaker 1: done in Kurdistan without a lot of bribe, money, greasing
Speaker 1: a lot of palms. The KRG is a hell of
Speaker 1: a lot more functional than the government in Baghdad, but
Speaker 1: it basically exists to siphon off cash to a handful
Speaker 1: of wealthy families. At the top of the heap are
Speaker 1: there Barzanis and the Talibanis, whose many scions are basically
Speaker 1: Kurdish nobility. Or Bill is a city where you can
Speaker 1: see penniless refugees and millionaires driving escalates on the very
Speaker 1: same street. In other words, it's a lot like Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Jake and I landed in Sulimania in the early afternoon
Speaker 1: July eighteenth, two thousand nineteen. We were met by a driver,
Speaker 1: a friend of a friend, who would take us on
Speaker 1: the five hour drive to her Bill. Now the drive
Speaker 1: shouldn't really be five hours long, but the roads in
Speaker 1: between Sulimania and her Bill are filled with potholes in
Speaker 1: random debris. We have to slow to a near stop
Speaker 1: every few minutes in order to navigate them. Some of
Speaker 1: my local friends say the poor state of Kurdistan's roads
Speaker 1: is an understandable lapse given the giant war the government
Speaker 1: just fought. Others say there'd be plenty of money for
Speaker 1: road work if it weren't all going to the barsanis
Speaker 1: the patron of the family, Massoud Barzani is worth an
Speaker 1: estimated forty eight billion dollars. The state of California, with
Speaker 1: roughly eight times the population of Iraqi. Kurdistan spent one
Speaker 1: point six billion dollars maintaining its state highways in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nineteen. You do the math. Graft is not
Speaker 1: the Kyrg's only problem. Rank nepotism is another major issue.
Speaker 1: Massoud Barzani was the president of the Kyrgi until June
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen, when he was succeeded by his nephew, Natschervin.
Speaker 1: Prior to being elected president, Natschervin was the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of the KRG. He was succeeded in office there by
Speaker 1: mass Rua Barzani, Masud's son. There's a lot to love
Speaker 1: about this part of the world, but the sheer scale
Speaker 1: of the corruption and the unbelievable bullshit regular people here
Speaker 1: have to put up with as a result of it,
Speaker 1: it's it's just infuriating. We have to wait a day
Speaker 1: and a half in our bill for our fixer. My
Speaker 1: old friends sang Are to square things away with the
Speaker 1: border crossing into Rojava, so Jake and I see the
Speaker 1: sites and swing by the mall to pick up a
Speaker 1: couple of last minute bits of equipment. I spend most
Speaker 1: of my time working my way through Iraqi. Kurdis stands
Speaker 1: shockingly good selection of international beers. I settle on Moosehead,
Speaker 1: an odd brew from New Brunswick, Canada. I developed an
Speaker 1: appreciation for it during my days in Halifax. I had
Speaker 1: my first Moosehead on a nude beach in Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1: It feels strange, to say the least, to drink one
Speaker 1: in the blistering heat of an Iraqi summer. On our
Speaker 1: last night in her Bill, twelve hours before we're set
Speaker 1: to drive to Rojava, Jake and I are in a
Speaker 1: cab on our way to dinner. The driver has the
Speaker 1: radio turned to a local pop station, and the music
Speaker 1: is a ragged selection of hits from the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. There's a lot of talk of champagne, bottles
Speaker 1: and clubs and brand new cars and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. At one point, the host, who speaks in
Speaker 1: flawless English, tells her listeners a story she's heard about
Speaker 1: Charlemagne the God. Apparently when he goes on tour. He
Speaker 1: flies four of his very good friends around with him
Speaker 1: everywhere he goes so that they can hang out and stuff,
Speaker 1: and she absolutely cannot get over how cool this sounds.
Speaker 1: The host of voice takes on a mournful tone when
Speaker 1: she says, I just want that life so bad. The
Speaker 1: pain in her voice is palpable. As I listen to this,
Speaker 1: I think about Murray book Chin here and her bill.
Speaker 1: The primary influences from the United States are pretty obvious
Speaker 1: celebrity obsession, displays of conspicuous wealth, marvel t shirt, star wars, posters,
Speaker 1: all of the cultural gifts that Hollywood has distributed to
Speaker 1: the world. But just a few hours away in Northeast Syria,
Speaker 1: the United States's main contribution to the culture there was
Speaker 1: the work of an obscure anarchist philosopher. Globalism is a
Speaker 1: fucking Roulette wheel. We eat and head back to the hotel.
Speaker 1: I go to bed thinking about Murray book Chin and
Speaker 1: Charlemagne the God. Jake and I wake up at seven
Speaker 1: am on July excited that today is finally the day
Speaker 1: we will both see Rojava. All right, Jake, it's Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: A feeling man, You're fiting good minute fresh. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what about what two and a half hours three hours
Speaker 1: from the border from when? Yeah, and we like three
Speaker 1: hours there? What he messed around for like a couple
Speaker 1: of hours waiting from stumps and then go across and
Speaker 1: then do another couple I was waiting for stumps on
Speaker 1: the OtherSide. Yeah, it will be a long day of
Speaker 1: waiting for stamps. Yep. Sangar picks us up in his
Speaker 1: brand new Toyota four by four. I first met him
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seventeen during the Siege of Mosle.
Speaker 1: Sangar probably has the highest tolerance for danger of anyone
Speaker 1: I've ever met, and that's saying something. Some of my
Speaker 1: fondest memories at the times we drove away from the
Speaker 1: death defying trips to the front line, he'd always stopped
Speaker 1: at a little shack on the road back to her
Speaker 1: Bill and buy us all knockoff Heineken's hen Kins. Those
Speaker 1: lukewarm beers in his car tasted better than any alcohol
Speaker 1: I've had before or since. As we drive to the border,
Speaker 1: Sangar tells us about his previous trips to Rojava. He
Speaker 1: goes there to work, obviously, but also for fun. When
Speaker 1: Ramadan comes around during the daytime, most of a rack
Speaker 1: shuts down and alcohol sales are officially forbidden. On those days,
Speaker 1: Rojaba becomes a Kurdish drinkers oasis. So you don't feel
Speaker 1: there's ramana in here. I know. It's like um that
Speaker 1: the restaurants they have to have like what you call
Speaker 1: the big rocks, you know, like they cover, they cover
Speaker 1: the restaurant. They're no fun, no, I know, like the
Speaker 1: tea shops, restaurants are opening like it's normal. There's no
Speaker 1: religion in Rojavva. No, there's no just upper religion, just
Speaker 1: up religion. Yeah, you know, like you don't feel it's
Speaker 1: romana here. You're feeling you know, yeah if you you
Speaker 1: cannot smoke everywhere here, you know, like you cannot smoking public,
Speaker 1: you cannot smoking with But like there it is so
Speaker 1: rare to find someone who's fasting with Ramanani. No one ramana.
Speaker 1: So that's even like for drinks beer, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't find them easily. That's great. The radio continues
Speaker 1: to play as we drive along, mostly hip hop ballads
Speaker 1: of Hollywood wealth at ex Us. They make for a
Speaker 1: strange contrast with the yellow Sun racked countryside of northern Iraq.
Speaker 1: Much of Kurdistan is gorgeous, but not this area. We
Speaker 1: roll past dismal, gray villages and over broken roads to
Speaker 1: the tune of bubbly pop music. We noticed an unusual
Speaker 1: amount of Iraqi military traffic on the road to the
Speaker 1: Syrian border. No one knows why precisely, but we assume
Speaker 1: it's due to something that happened on July sevente the
Speaker 1: day before we landed in Iraq. While I was still
Speaker 1: in the sky, two unidentified gunmen had walked into an
Speaker 1: Herbille restaurant and opened fire on a group of Turkish diplomats.
Speaker 1: One of those diplomats was killed, along with a civilian. Now,
Speaker 1: nothing more than that was known at the time we landed,
Speaker 1: but I will say that one of the people we
Speaker 1: talked to you just assumed this had been an attack
Speaker 1: carried out by the p k K. If you'll think
Speaker 1: back to the last episode, the p KK is that
Speaker 1: left wing militant group founded by a Dola Agolan that
Speaker 1: the the U S and Turkey both considered to be terrorists.
Speaker 1: As Kurdish Turkish militants, they have a fraud relationship with
Speaker 1: the cur Dish regional government in Iraq. Now their FELLO occurred.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the actual people who live in
Speaker 1: northern Iraq under the ki rgs you know, domain or
Speaker 1: at least broadly sympathetic to the p kk's goals. But
Speaker 1: the kara Ji's government, dominated by the Barzani family, has
Speaker 1: been making increasing diplomatic overtures and having more and more
Speaker 1: conversations and making more deals with the Turkish regime for
Speaker 1: years now. They want better relations with Turkey for variety
Speaker 1: of political and practical reasons, but this has been regularly
Speaker 1: stymied by the fact that the PEKK has a bunch
Speaker 1: of bases in northern Iraq and regularly attacks Turkish soldiers. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Turkey regularly bombs northern Iraq, which the KYRG is not
Speaker 1: super happy with either. It's a messy and it's a
Speaker 1: fraud situation, and it complicates relations between Rojava and the
Speaker 1: Kurdish regional government in Iraq. Iraqi. Kurdistan is also one
Speaker 1: of the most capitalist places on the planet and Rojava
Speaker 1: system is very much founded by far left radicals uh
Speaker 1: and particular among these radicals are members of the p
Speaker 1: y D or the Democratic Union Party of Syria. I
Speaker 1: really apologized for all the acronyms. There's just no other
Speaker 1: way to tell the story. The p y D is
Speaker 1: the largest political party in Rojava, and most of the
Speaker 1: early organization in the region after the Assad regime pulled
Speaker 1: out was done by the p y D and its members. Now,
Speaker 1: the Turkish government considers the p y D to be
Speaker 1: terrorists as well, and says they're basically just a wing
Speaker 1: of the p k K. And to make matters more complicated,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of p KK involvement in the p
Speaker 1: y D, So it's a mess. The whole situation is
Speaker 1: almost unbearably complex and and and messy and complicated. But um,
Speaker 1: the most important thing to know at this point is
Speaker 1: that it wasn't exactly strange for us to see the
Speaker 1: Kurdish regional government sending more soldiers to the border with
Speaker 1: Rojava in response to a p KK assassination in their capital.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that has happened before. And I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of the ride talking the situation over with Jake
Speaker 1: and sang Are and trying to make sense of it
Speaker 1: all in my own head. I know it's confusing. As
Speaker 1: we talk all this over, we wind up hitting the
Speaker 1: first border checkpoint at around noon, a place called pesh Kebar,
Speaker 1: a small crowd of perhaps two people are already waiting
Speaker 1: to cross. These are Syrian civilians. Many of them fled
Speaker 1: the civil war years ago. They recently decided the situation
Speaker 1: was safe enough to return, and they're headed back for
Speaker 1: a long awaited reunion with their families. A few months
Speaker 1: from now, after the Turkish invasion, many of these same
Speaker 1: people will become refugees yet again. We leave the air
Speaker 1: conditioned comfort of Sangar's car and head to the office
Speaker 1: where our fate, or at least our ability to cross
Speaker 1: legally into Rojaba, will be decided. She's going to okay,
Speaker 1: come and then we go to the music. All right.
Speaker 1: Quadrett is the gatekeeper of the border control station. She's
Speaker 1: one of the few women I've met in Kurdistan who
Speaker 1: holds a significant role in the government. She is essentially
Speaker 1: the intermediary for the people who decide which journalists are
Speaker 1: journalists enough to get to go to Northeast Syria. Of course,
Speaker 1: Jake and I worked with Sangar to set things up
Speaker 1: ahead of time, but having things set up ahead of
Speaker 1: time means almost nothing in a place like Iraq. We
Speaker 1: are led into a small room with surprisingly good a
Speaker 1: c where another Western journalist waits for his credentials. Quadrat
Speaker 1: looks our paperwork over and deliver some bad news. We've
Speaker 1: been denied. Permission to cross the y is not immediately clear.
Speaker 1: We appear to have run a foul of Iraqi bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: so we continue to sit and wait. Time sledges by
Speaker 1: minutes than an hour than two. We wait with a motley,
Speaker 1: quiet assortment of other reporters from around the world. They
Speaker 1: filter in and out, and all of their approval processes
Speaker 1: seem to go much better than our own. From over
Speaker 1: in Rojava, Kabbat are soon to be. Fixer texts us
Speaker 1: that we have a three pm appointment with the sash
Speaker 1: Kurdish military police to get our approval pass to work
Speaker 1: in Rojava, as it's already well passed. One Jake begins
Speaker 1: to suspect we will not make it in time for
Speaker 1: this meeting. He winds up being right. Only after interminable
Speaker 1: weight do we find out what the problem was that
Speaker 1: when you sent an email come on go was they
Speaker 1: filled to the online media right radio. It turns out
Speaker 1: that some of the papers I submitted to the Iraqi
Speaker 1: government listed my employer as I Heart Media rather than
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. This would not be an issue anywhere
Speaker 1: else in the world, but to the iraqis the word
Speaker 1: media made us sound like a PR firm and the
Speaker 1: only one journalists to crossover. Quadrette understands the mistake here,
Speaker 1: but both of her hands are tied up in the
Speaker 1: red tape that makes up roughly three fourths of the
Speaker 1: mass of the Iraqi government. The only man who can
Speaker 1: turn our no into a yes as a fellow named
Speaker 1: Dr Hamide. He's in charge of approving reporters. Unfortunately, Dr
Speaker 1: Hamid lives in Sweden, where it is currently night time.
Speaker 1: We call him repeatedly for more than an hour, texting
Speaker 1: and dialing on multiple phones. Hello, Dr Hamide, this is
Speaker 1: Robert Evans with I Heart Radio. UM. I'm calling because
Speaker 1: we're here at the border crossing station and we're trying
Speaker 1: to get across and we've already got, you know, an
Speaker 1: emailed approval, but they're saying that we need your approval
Speaker 1: to get across, and there was some sort of confusion
Speaker 1: about us being a media company or a radio company.
Speaker 1: At two thirty six pm, still waiting in the press
Speaker 1: office with quadrat I wright encircle the phrase fuck borders
Speaker 1: in my notebook. It is a sentiment I felt often
Speaker 1: throughout my adult life, but rarely so acutely. Rojava, this
Speaker 1: place I've been reading about for years is right over there.
Speaker 1: I could literally swim across the Tigris and be there
Speaker 1: in thirty minutes, but because of a line on paper
Speaker 1: drawn by dead French and British assholes, I cannot. It's frustrating,
Speaker 1: to say the least. But at the end of it all,
Speaker 1: Dr Hamid's approval finally comes through a little after three PMLA.
Speaker 1: Before we can go, there's still a little more bureaucracy
Speaker 1: for us to weather though. First we're questioned by the
Speaker 1: Iraqi Ritish Asaish in the mildest way possible. They ask
Speaker 1: us basic questions about our plans and then stamp our documents.
Speaker 1: The whole process takes around thirty minutes, and it mostly
Speaker 1: consists of us handing our passports to numerous cops, who
Speaker 1: passed them around to other cops, who passed them around
Speaker 1: to more cops before handing them back to us. It's
Speaker 1: a perfect illustration of bureaucracy in a nutshell. We bid
Speaker 1: goodbye to Sangar and we take our place in line
Speaker 1: for the bus into Rojava. Everyone else on the rickety
Speaker 1: steel contraption is either a refugee or Assyrian with business
Speaker 1: interests over in Iraq. Many of them are young children,
Speaker 1: excited to be back home. We cross the bus rumbling
Speaker 1: over a massive pontoon bridge. Crossing the Tigris is always
Speaker 1: a strange sensation for me. The river has an almost
Speaker 1: mythic presence in my mind. Growing up. It felt like
Speaker 1: the kind of location Indiana Jones would stumble onto during
Speaker 1: an adventure. It feels sacred and heavy, with the strange
Speaker 1: kind of gravity that only the deepest history imparts to
Speaker 1: a place. But it is in the end to another river,
Speaker 1: and our crossing is uneventful. We are officially driving across
Speaker 1: Rojava for the first time. On the other side of
Speaker 1: the Tigris, it's a quick, dusty jaunt to the border
Speaker 1: crossing station. The contrast is immediate and obvious. On the
Speaker 1: Iraqi side of the border, everything was clearly temporary, prefabricated
Speaker 1: office buildings, trailers and tarps, things that can quickly be
Speaker 1: torn down once the political situation changes. The Rujavan border
Speaker 1: control station however, is a massive stone edifice with a
Speaker 1: large duty free building still under construction and a suite
Speaker 1: of permanent offices. In front of the station is a
Speaker 1: billboard covered in the brightly colored faces of young men
Speaker 1: and women soldiers in the WHITEPG and J who died
Speaker 1: fighting isis The meaning of all of this is quite clear.
Speaker 1: Rejava paid for its sovereignty and blood and it's here
Speaker 1: to stay. Something in the air seems to change the
Speaker 1: moment we cross the border, and it's more than just
Speaker 1: the quality of the buildings. We see women in uniforms,
Speaker 1: suddenly sizable numbers of them clearly doing important work. Even
Speaker 1: the women out of uniforms seemed to carry themselves differently.
Speaker 1: And the first of these women that we meet is
Speaker 1: our fixer, Kabat. She's in her mid twenties, about five
Speaker 1: ft six and thin, with a warm smile, piercing eyes,
Speaker 1: and an immediate get the funk to business attitude. She
Speaker 1: rushes us through the bureaucratic necessities, hurrying the border officials
Speaker 1: along when they go too slowly for her, liking the
Speaker 1: people who run things in Rojava, the p y D
Speaker 1: and the SDF from the Sundry, other acronym organizations and
Speaker 1: ministering this place. They're all recognized as terrorist groups by
Speaker 1: the Turkish government. If any of these organizations were to, say,
Speaker 1: stamp a journalist passport, it might cause that person a
Speaker 1: lot of unpleasantness when they had a layover and is
Speaker 1: stand bull on the way back home. So instead of
Speaker 1: stamping our passports, the Rajavan authorities give us a thin
Speaker 1: strip of paper with our personal information and several stamps
Speaker 1: on it. This is our internal passport. The whole process
Speaker 1: of getting it takes about a half hour, and then
Speaker 1: we're in the van. Alan Kabat's chain smoking driver takes
Speaker 1: off down the highway, giving us our first good look
Speaker 1: at the land itself. Wow, it's beautiful. As soon as
Speaker 1: we get past the hill and it's just like mountains
Speaker 1: and valleys and hills and green, more grain than you
Speaker 1: see in Iraq. This would not remain true for our
Speaker 1: whole trip through Rojava, but it was definitely true of
Speaker 1: the first couple of miles of terrain we saw. After
Speaker 1: crossing the border. We get to talking with Kabat and
Speaker 1: I try to sound out some of her opinions. I
Speaker 1: mentioned that when we were in our bill Jake and
Speaker 1: I had driven past the Barzani family palace, a massive
Speaker 1: compound significantly larger than a city block. Yeah. Yeah. Kabat
Speaker 1: immediately defined capitalism as something we don't want in ro Java,
Speaker 1: which was interesting to me, but she also acknowledged that
Speaker 1: the system in place was a very weird hybrid of
Speaker 1: capitalism that was kind of duct taped to leftist political theory.
Speaker 1: Java has taken a lot of criticism for this from
Speaker 1: Western leftists and even from some foreign volunteers. Kabat, for
Speaker 1: her opinion, expresses that this kind of hybrid system is
Speaker 1: really the only option right now given the realities of war.
Speaker 1: We are that we're protected to that level. They are
Speaker 1: still yeah, because it's too confused to build a new system,
Speaker 1: which she is not. And it's interfare and everything. So
Speaker 1: now it's unshapped, you know, it's like just completely our system.
Speaker 1: It's not to it's half capitalists have communists have nothing.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's like a cultural best all the
Speaker 1: are the culture. It's just not clear state, you know, shaped,
Speaker 1: it haven't been shaped it. So we are struggling to
Speaker 1: always be aware, like, look, we don't capitalist system. We
Speaker 1: don't want to the communist completely system. We donna something
Speaker 1: which is stud with our touchant or you know, history
Speaker 1: and everything. But for sure not as a couch. This
Speaker 1: is everywhere now, she said, but for sure not as
Speaker 1: the KRG there. And she's stating her opinion that in
Speaker 1: her eyes, most of the believers in the Rojava project
Speaker 1: are looking for something new, something that hasn't been done before,
Speaker 1: that will work better than the stuff that has been
Speaker 1: tried there in other places in the world. And there's
Speaker 1: not really widespread agreement on how that new thing will
Speaker 1: work in every instance, or exactly what it will be.
Speaker 1: But they have looked at the border, at the thing
Speaker 1: going on right next to them, and they have decided
Speaker 1: that that's something they don't want to have. As we
Speaker 1: roll into Derek, the first city we see in Rojava,
Speaker 1: it's obvious that this region does not have the same
Speaker 1: rampant wealth disparity we saw across the border. No one
Speaker 1: is rich in Rojava, or at least they don't appear
Speaker 1: that way on the surface. But no one seems crippling
Speaker 1: lee poor either. We don't see any fancy New German
Speaker 1: cars or glittering malls. We do, however, see miles and
Speaker 1: miles of tunnels being constructed by the SDF defensive preparations
Speaker 1: for the imminent Turkish invasion. I mean, is it kind
Speaker 1: of like kind of just accepted that that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: It's always all the about said, like we haven't seen
Speaker 1: the arient. Yeah, you know, always that The funny thing
Speaker 1: that how we prepared after all these sizes if it's
Speaker 1: everyone attack us? But now when were they are preparing?
Speaker 1: That's mean there is something very big, you know. So
Speaker 1: we are a friend? Why you are prepared? We use
Speaker 1: it to not prepare. It's an awkward subject, namely due
Speaker 1: to the fact that the invasion of Rojaba can only
Speaker 1: happen if the United States pulls its troops out and
Speaker 1: abandons the region to Turkey's dictator. Are I take it
Speaker 1: people don't have a lot of faith in the United
Speaker 1: States is going to continue? Yeah, exactly, we don't. Never never,
Speaker 1: We're not great friends. The Turkish border is so close.
Speaker 1: We can see the massive wall constructed by Edwin's government,
Speaker 1: a towering concrete edifice topped with wire and backed by
Speaker 1: guard towers. It's the kind of wall Donald Trump dreams
Speaker 1: about at night. The knowledge that NATO's second largest army
Speaker 1: sat looming behind. It was deeply unsettling to all of us,
Speaker 1: but Hubbat seemed to take the looming specter of doom
Speaker 1: in stride. It's infuriating. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe the
Speaker 1: election will make a difference. Which election the in the
Speaker 1: United States? Day by day? That makes sense. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna struggle for sure, we are not. It's good if not.
Speaker 1: We're started. Isn't there saying around here that's like struggle
Speaker 1: is life? For resistance is like something like that. Even
Speaker 1: but Gianna, how much you resistance? How much you are alone? Yeah.
Speaker 1: During our drive into Derek, we noticed that dozens of
Speaker 1: metal storefronts have been painted with three leaf clovers. On
Speaker 1: a deep laugh under background, Kabat informs us that those
Speaker 1: metal grades used to be covered in Syrian regime flags.
Speaker 1: Once the regime was gone, she says, people in town
Speaker 1: decided to paint them over with something more feminine. As
Speaker 1: we head to our hotel for night, Kabat explains that
Speaker 1: tomorrow we will visit the city of Kamishlo. Kamischlow's very
Speaker 1: name is a matter of political significance. Like the Turkish government,
Speaker 1: the Syrian government for years suppressed Kurdish identity. This meant
Speaker 1: suppressing the Kurdish name of the city Kamischlow, in favor
Speaker 1: of something more Arabic. And we see not the people.
Speaker 1: How I've been fire than tortune because of this all
Speaker 1: during the regime time. I remember one of the doctor
Speaker 1: because he just tried his name and they said they
Speaker 1: to place that clinic is okay, and he have been arrested,
Speaker 1: that tortured because of the Remember, it's like identity, you know, think,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm sure it's the same thing in Turkey, right,
Speaker 1: Kurd's being murdered because they use their language. You're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's funny how many years I change in the
Speaker 1: name of the places to Arabic names and never starve
Speaker 1: in population is still using the naches, you know. The
Speaker 1: conversation comes to a close as we roll up to
Speaker 1: the Inn Deir Hotel, which I will come to learn
Speaker 1: it's probably the nicest hotel in all of Rojaba. It's
Speaker 1: so new that the interior walls shine largely because some
Speaker 1: of them are still wrapped in glossy protective plastic. The
Speaker 1: air conditioning works as long as there's power, which is
Speaker 1: mercive about eight of the time. There's a large TV
Speaker 1: in one corner of the lounge, and when we enter,
Speaker 1: it's showing the Kevin Hart Ice Cube movie right along.
Speaker 1: The subtitles are all in Arabic. This will prove to
Speaker 1: be the single most baffling thing I see during my
Speaker 1: journey through Java. The hotel is occupied primarily by foreign reporters.
Speaker 1: Habat checks us in and negotiates on the price while
Speaker 1: Jake and I sit down and have our first good
Speaker 1: coffee of the day. For a while, we just sit there,
Speaker 1: taking in the fact that we've made it. We're here.
Speaker 1: Journalists from the BBC and Vice filter in and out,
Speaker 1: and we meet a photographer from Greece along with a
Speaker 1: female Welsh journalist, who sit and have coffee with us.
Speaker 1: A few minutes later, Jake's friend Shea enters. Now, Shia
Speaker 1: is a mountain curd. He lives somewhere on the edge
Speaker 1: of Iraq and Iran. He's a tall, lanky young man
Speaker 1: with a quick wit and a general air that reminds
Speaker 1: me of my comedian friends back in Los Angeles. Jake
Speaker 1: and Sheia had pre obviously worked together, and now Shia
Speaker 1: was leading another team of reporters through Rojava. It's late
Speaker 1: in the afternoon by the time we check into our rooms.
Speaker 1: Kabat bids us farewell for the night. It's an hour
Speaker 1: or so for her to drive up to Komischla, where
Speaker 1: she lives. She and a lawn will return in the
Speaker 1: morning to start our first full day in Rojava. The
Speaker 1: sun is beginning to set, and then wasn't the Islamic
Speaker 1: call to Prayer begins to play. I head up to
Speaker 1: the roof of the hotel with my new colleagues to
Speaker 1: watch my first sunset in Rojava. This is the nicest
Speaker 1: part of Java. Yeah, I'm glad. We are glad we
Speaker 1: came here. Derek is a lovely town with some elevation
Speaker 1: to help you take it in. My first impression is
Speaker 1: that it's green and clean, although you know, rather run down.
Speaker 1: It is full of people bustling, but not crowded. The
Speaker 1: other journalists tell me that Kamischelo is a very different place.
Speaker 1: It's doubled in size from four thousand to nearly a
Speaker 1: million people since the start of the revolution, and they
Speaker 1: describe it as dirty, dangerous, and strained, a symbol of
Speaker 1: the precarious nature of Rojava itself. After a while, I
Speaker 1: ask my new friends what they think about this place.
Speaker 1: How real is this Rojavan revolution really in their eyes?
Speaker 1: Everyone agrees that what's been achieved here is significant. The
Speaker 1: difference in women's rights alone is staggering. The serried militias
Speaker 1: of the STF are obviously good fighters, but in terms
Speaker 1: of the fantastic promises of the Rojavan constitution and the
Speaker 1: transformative theories of Abdula Jelan and Moray book Chin, well,
Speaker 1: they have doubts about these. In particular, my colleagues wonder
Speaker 1: how deep the changes of this revolution will really prove.
Speaker 1: When push comes to shove with the Turkish government. We
Speaker 1: get together. Jake and I are new friends in Shia,
Speaker 1: and we head to a local restaurant for food and
Speaker 1: numerous tall bottles of FS, a Turkish beer. While we eat,
Speaker 1: Siah tells us about one of the Arab tribes in
Speaker 1: the area, the Akashant, near a town called Hassekah. They're
Speaker 1: a tribe who has been integrated effectively into the SDF,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that they're very traditional beliefs clash with
Speaker 1: the leftist ideals that have made Rojava an international Darling
Speaker 1: some people will point to this compromises evidence that the
Speaker 1: Rojavan project is a farce. These local tribes hold distinctly
Speaker 1: regressive attitudes towards the role of women and religion in society,
Speaker 1: but Sia says the sdf's acceptance of them as a
Speaker 1: wise and pragmatic acknowledgement of on their ground reality. He
Speaker 1: tells us, if you want to make an impact and
Speaker 1: keep things settled, you have to go through the tribes.
Speaker 1: In general, Sia is fatalistic about the future of Rojava.
Speaker 1: He mean says no words in stating his belief that
Speaker 1: the whole project is likely doomed since there's almost no
Speaker 1: chance the Americans will continue to keep troops in the region.
Speaker 1: That said, I also detect a certain tinge of pride
Speaker 1: in his voice when he talks about what's been accomplished here.
Speaker 1: When I show him the internal passport I received at
Speaker 1: the border station, he tells me take good care of
Speaker 1: that it was bought in blood. He explains that the
Speaker 1: current situation, the stability Rojava enjoys, and the fact that
Speaker 1: a formal border crossing even exists, these are all direct
Speaker 1: products of the sacrifice of thousands of lives. I tell him,
Speaker 1: I've been reading over the Rojavan Constitution, and I ask
Speaker 1: how much of it he thinks is real. He tells me,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the constitution, most of it's happening,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to the communalism, most of it's
Speaker 1: not happening. Syrians are used to a hundred years of
Speaker 1: entrenched bureaucracy. Now she speaks almost as many languages as
Speaker 1: I have fingers, and he rattles through them over the
Speaker 1: course of the night. As he communicates with driver's white
Speaker 1: staff and orders the last round of take home beers
Speaker 1: from the manager of the restaurant, he seems to be
Speaker 1: as fluent and Kormage, Kurdish and Arabic as he is
Speaker 1: in English. Someone asks him what language he dreams in,
Speaker 1: and he responds dreaming has no language. Align my drunken
Speaker 1: brains finds significant enough to take down in my notebook.
Speaker 1: We returned to the hotel and stagger up to the
Speaker 1: rooftop for our nightcap. One of my new friends tells
Speaker 1: us about his first days in Syria at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the civil War, when the YPG and J, the
Speaker 1: two militias that make up most of the SDF, were
Speaker 1: two relatively insignificant groups in a nation that had rapidly
Speaker 1: filled with militants. He credits their success with their great
Speaker 1: fighting ability, but also expresses doubts that the most revolutionary
Speaker 1: promises of Rojava will ever be achieved. Journalists and fixers
Speaker 1: tend to be cynical people, and I am not surprised
Speaker 1: that our new friends have little faith in the Rojava revolution.
Speaker 1: What I find most interesting is the one thing they
Speaker 1: all seem to agree on. The gains for the women
Speaker 1: of Northeast Syria have been staggering the greatest success of
Speaker 1: this revolution so far. One by one we finish our beers.
Speaker 1: There's a general agreement that we should all get to bed.
Speaker 1: It's late and we've each got to be up early.
Speaker 1: But for a few more minutes we find our eyes
Speaker 1: drawn to the lights of Rojava spread out before us.
Speaker 1: I look down at my phone catch the time, an
Speaker 1: express shock that Jake and I have only been in
Speaker 1: country for a few hours. It already feels like so
Speaker 1: much longer. There's something about this place that seems to
Speaker 1: suck you in and dilate the passage of hours until
Speaker 1: they feel like days. I mentioned this, and Shia nods
Speaker 1: in agreement. He tells me that time here is elastic.
Speaker 1: I had to bed thinking about that at the end
Speaker 1: of my first night in Rojava. My expectations of this
Speaker 1: place feel elastic. Two. They swelled during my first few
Speaker 1: minutes across the border, which is a pretty natural reaction
Speaker 1: for me, at least to the giddiness of seeing a
Speaker 1: new part of the world, and of course meeting Cabat
Speaker 1: and observing the differences between Rojava and Iraqi. Curtis Stan
Speaker 1: swelled my expectations even further, But then a long talk
Speaker 1: with my colleagues contracted me. I drift off to sleep,
Speaker 1: wondering just how I'll feel about all this in another
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. The Moldy the Women's War is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.