Speaker 1: All Ze Media. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here,
Speaker 1: a podcast about it happening here. And you know, when
Speaker 1: we talk about like collapse, things falling apart, there's very
Speaker 1: few case studies that are more important for folks to
Speaker 1: be aware of than what has happened and is continuing
Speaker 1: to happen in Northeast Syria, in a region of the
Speaker 1: world known as Rojava or the Autonomous Regions of Northeast Syria.
Speaker 1: And I'm here with James Stout. He and I have
Speaker 1: both reported from the ro Javon project, and we are
Speaker 1: talking again with Arthur and Debbie Bookchin about what's going
Speaker 1: on there now, kind of as the struggle continues, so
Speaker 1: to speak.
Speaker 2: That's right, and thank you very much for joining us. Arthurine, Debbie,
Speaker 2: and you're both here in your capacity as representatives of
Speaker 2: the Emergency Committee for Rajava.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right, and thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for coming back.
Speaker 2: So I think perhaps we should begin by explaining what
Speaker 2: ECI is and does. I've been very fortunate to be
Speaker 2: asked to speak at one of your meetings, so I'm familiar,
Speaker 2: but I think maybe some of our listeners wouldn't be.
Speaker 2: So could you begin with explaining what it is what
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, so, the Emergency Committee for Rojeva is it's
Speaker 4: kind of the only standing US based organization focused on
Speaker 4: solidarity with the Rojeva Revolution. And what we do is
Speaker 4: we try to build a grassroots solidarity movement with the
Speaker 4: revolution in North East Syria, with the Curtis Freedom movement
Speaker 4: more broadly, and we do that in a few different ways.
Speaker 4: One is like just trying to inform the public right
Speaker 4: so kind of public education. Another is advocacy trying to
Speaker 4: sort of put pressure on the United States government to
Speaker 4: stop arming people who are trying to kill everybody in
Speaker 4: Rogevo and to support the people instead. But another thing
Speaker 4: that we do is try to build kind of movement
Speaker 4: to movement relationships. None like finding social movements in the
Speaker 4: United States that we think share a lot of affinity
Speaker 4: with movement over there, try to put them in touch
Speaker 4: and try to kind of facilitate dialogue.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I mean I think it's important to kind of start,
Speaker 1: as we often do, with the attempt to get the
Speaker 1: US government to stop arming folks killing the people there,
Speaker 1: which in this case refers specifically to the Turkish military.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're all kind of dealing with in a
Speaker 1: separate part of the world, how difficult it is to
Speaker 1: stop the United States government from arming people.
Speaker 5: Do that, right, Yeah, it's a great point, Robert. You know,
Speaker 5: I think sometimes it's hard for people to even comprehend
Speaker 5: just the massive flow of weapons from the United States
Speaker 5: to Turkey. I mean, over the years it's been it's
Speaker 5: just I think in the last fifteen years alone, the
Speaker 5: US has sold Turkey something like four billion dollars worth
Speaker 5: of Patriot missiles alone, you know, and then billions or
Speaker 5: at least millions, and you know, helicopters, the Cobra attack helicopters.
Speaker 3: There is just a huge.
Speaker 5: Flow of arms from the United States to Turkey. And
Speaker 5: as Arthur said, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 5: we really do try and do at ECR is to
Speaker 5: get people not only aware but also into doing some
Speaker 5: advocacy on that. And one of the things that we're
Speaker 5: also trying to prevent right now is the sale of
Speaker 5: any more F sixteen's to Turkey, which, as I'm sure
Speaker 5: your listeners know, are used in the bombing of people
Speaker 5: in Rojeva and also in Turkey and in northern Iraq.
Speaker 5: So that's a very critical issue in.
Speaker 1: Fact, yeah, yeah, and it's a critical issue in part
Speaker 1: because like what we're seeing is a I would describe
Speaker 1: it as a pretty concentrated attempt to destroy civil society
Speaker 1: in Rojeva, right, Like, you're absolutely not just through the
Speaker 1: use of air strikes, through things like blocking off access
Speaker 1: to water, but the f sixteens that Turkey purchases from
Speaker 1: the United States and the continuing armaments to keep those
Speaker 1: things flying and firing missiles are a huge part of
Speaker 1: how they're able to continue degrading the capacity of the
Speaker 1: self administration to maintain civil society exactly.
Speaker 5: I mean, there is really an aim there, aim to
Speaker 5: completely destabilize the society, to shake confidence and the autonomous administration,
Speaker 5: to break morale, to engage in psychological terror, and frankly,
Speaker 5: you know, also to do physical harm. As I'm sure
Speaker 5: you know and your listeners know. They Turkey very effectively
Speaker 5: uses drones and other methods to take out leadership, particularly
Speaker 5: female leadership, women who are leaders of the movement. And
Speaker 5: you know, there's not a day that goes by really
Speaker 5: that doesn't include strikes from Turkey into Rojeva. I mean,
Speaker 5: I'm just thinking, you know, the Membij military Council just
Speaker 5: has reported in the last couple of days that the
Speaker 5: State of Turkey has shelled various villages and membies. You
Speaker 5: know that Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo are really subjected to
Speaker 5: continuous embargoes by the Damascus government, but also you know,
Speaker 5: Turkey intercedes to prevent supplies from getting to these places.
Speaker 5: So it's really I think there's something like more than
Speaker 5: two hundred bombings by Turkey Racky Kurdistan even since just
Speaker 5: the beginning of the year, So it's really ongoing assault.
Speaker 4: No, absolutely, I think you know, for people who are
Speaker 4: less familiar with it, it's easy to kind of get
Speaker 4: bogged down in the weeds because all the details they
Speaker 4: change every day. But I think the broadze strokes are pretty.
Speaker 3: Clear and they haven't changed for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 3: Turkey sees.
Speaker 4: This revolution rightly so as a threat to its own power,
Speaker 4: to its own ideology. You know, the idea that local
Speaker 4: communities would govern themselves pluralistically through autonomy is a direct
Speaker 4: threat to the idea of the Turkish state, which is
Speaker 4: basically a fascist nation state. And they kind of have
Speaker 4: a twofold strategy. I think you could see it this way, right. So,
Speaker 4: like for those who don't know, Turkey has already invade
Speaker 4: in Northeastiria multiple times. It's invaded Euphrine in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: set Kanye te Labiat in twenty nineteen, and it occupies
Speaker 4: that territory still to this day. But when it's been
Speaker 4: unable to seize more territory directly, it kind of has
Speaker 4: this twofold strategy where the other side of the coin
Speaker 4: is to just do everything possible to make life unlivable, right,
Speaker 4: So that's where the assassinations come in.
Speaker 3: That's where the sort.
Speaker 4: Of information warfare, blocking of water, sort of economic embargo.
Speaker 4: The basic idea is just to spread fear, to spread
Speaker 4: uncertainty into every sphere of life, and like you said, Robert,
Speaker 4: to basically attack civil society itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if you could explain. I think our
Speaker 2: listeners are maybe familiar with the campaign against civil society
Speaker 2: and civilian targets that we saw in October November of
Speaker 2: last year, that I saw some of while I was there.
Speaker 2: But Turkey's recently launched like a spring offensive, right, which
Speaker 2: doesn't isn't exclusively unlimited to bombing, but also it contains
Speaker 2: like I guess combined ons infantry bombing. Can you explain
Speaker 2: what's happening there and what the sort of I think
Speaker 2: the plan you've sort of very well summed up already, right,
Speaker 2: which is to make life unlivable for the Kurdish freedom movement.
Speaker 2: But can you explain what's been happening in the last
Speaker 2: few weeks for people who haven't caught up.
Speaker 4: So for one, for people to understand the connection in
Speaker 4: the first place, right, it's important to understand that really,
Speaker 4: while there are distinct organizations which are autonomous and are
Speaker 4: place based within the Kurdish movement, right there's they have
Speaker 4: their own parties and self defense forces in Syria and
Speaker 4: in Iraq and other parts of Kurdistan.
Speaker 3: It's important to see it also.
Speaker 4: As kind of one big Kurtish freedom movement in another
Speaker 4: sense and an important sense, because Turkey sees it in
Speaker 4: that light. So for the same reasons the Turkey wants
Speaker 4: to crush the revolution in northeast Syria, the Turkey wants
Speaker 4: to crush the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, right, and
Speaker 4: the gorillas of the PKK are based in northern Iraq,
Speaker 4: and time and time again they've tried to sort of
Speaker 4: dislodge the gorilla forces from the mountains.
Speaker 3: But it's pretty hard to do.
Speaker 4: You know, this is NATO's second largest military and they
Speaker 4: still after decades, have not been able to crush this
Speaker 4: like insurgency, and so what we're seeing.
Speaker 3: In recent weeks is not necessarily so novel.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can, again, you can get into the
Speaker 4: weeds about the region of Metina and a particular road
Speaker 4: that they're trying to seize for logistics on their way
Speaker 4: to the mountain of Ghara. But the truth is they're
Speaker 4: trying to crush the movement where it is and they're
Speaker 4: seizing an opportunity. There's often like a weather window for
Speaker 4: the fighting in the mountains as well, and so when
Speaker 4: the snow starts to melt in the spring, you start
Speaker 4: to see an escalation of the fighting in the mountains,
Speaker 4: which often winds down in the fall.
Speaker 3: Again, but it's yet to be seen how this is
Speaker 3: going to go.
Speaker 4: I mean, y'all have I don't have to tell you right,
Speaker 4: like you've done some recent episodes on technological developments with
Speaker 4: the movement, and Turkey's been having a really hard time
Speaker 4: gains on the ground.
Speaker 5: And also I mean, as I think as Megan Bodette
Speaker 5: noted on this podcast recently, you know, the Turkish leader
Speaker 5: Erdowan tends to take out any insults he feels he suffered,
Speaker 5: and particularly elections setbacks has happened in the local elections
Speaker 5: at the end of March on the Kurdish regions everywhere
Speaker 5: in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and so we're seeing also crackdowns
Speaker 5: has happened also for quite some time, but on journalists
Speaker 5: again sort of cranking up again. It's funny that on
Speaker 5: World Press Day, which was May third, Kurdish journalist was arrested,
Speaker 5: you know, strip search, a woman thrown in jail, and
Speaker 5: this is you know, another sort of wave of politicians
Speaker 5: being arrested. Just again on Monday, I think thirteen politicians
Speaker 5: were sentenced to six years plus in jail in prison.
Speaker 5: So this sort of policy that seems to show itself
Speaker 5: every time Airdawan feels a bit threatened is one that
Speaker 5: we're seeing right now, in part I think as a
Speaker 5: result of those election defeats that his party suffered.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and as sinister as it is, whenever they lose
Speaker 4: in the mountains, they often hit harder in North Eastyria
Speaker 4: and vice versa. So it's all just a big kind
Speaker 4: of ugly game that they're playing.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to get to some more here, but
Speaker 1: first we've got to take a quick break. We're going
Speaker 1: to throw to some ads and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: and continue this discussion. All right, we're back, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get a sense of how the situation is
Speaker 1: on the ground right now despite the or considering the
Speaker 1: challenges of the attacks on infrastructure that have continued to
Speaker 1: go on, Like, what are we looking at from a
Speaker 1: daily life point of view in places like Camichelo.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, one of the things that I think
Speaker 5: is important to emphasize is just how strong a lot
Speaker 5: of the civil structures really are even in the face
Speaker 5: of these attacks by Turkey. And I'm sure Arthur will
Speaker 5: have something to say about that, and also about maybe
Speaker 5: some of the sort of the military side of this.
Speaker 5: But you know, the extraordinary thing about Rojeva is just
Speaker 5: how deeply engaged they are on the civil level. In
Speaker 5: our group at the Emergency Committee for Rozeva, we're in
Speaker 5: contact with a lot of people in civil society and
Speaker 5: I'm always amazed at how many sort of requests we
Speaker 5: get for you know, exchanges of information and scholars, and
Speaker 5: they're building the university there to do more and more
Speaker 5: technical things, you know, whether computers or agricultural sciences or
Speaker 5: you know, just a vast variety of graduate program they
Speaker 5: want to do right now in social ecology that I've
Speaker 5: been working with them on. And so, even though there's
Speaker 5: this effort by Turkey to kind of terrorize the civilian population,
Speaker 5: and I'm sure you know, people can imagine what it
Speaker 5: must feel like to have drones flying constantly overhead and
Speaker 5: wondering if you get into a car whether it might
Speaker 5: you might you know, be the subject of a drone attack. Nonetheless,
Speaker 5: there is still this extraordinary sort of hopefulness and also
Speaker 5: energy towards building the society. And for example, but one
Speaker 5: of the things that they recently did, and it took
Speaker 5: a long time, but they rewrote their Social Contract, which
Speaker 5: is what we would think of as a constitution, to
Speaker 5: empower women even more, you know, to empower various ethnic
Speaker 5: minorities more, and to make it a document that is
Speaker 5: truly inclusive in terms of how it was written and
Speaker 5: how it will be implemented, and so on the ground,
Speaker 5: I think, even though they are suffering in a lot
Speaker 5: of ways, and they are because you know, Rojeve is
Speaker 5: also a region that is subject to terrible environmental dislocations
Speaker 5: because of global warming. There's still a huge sort of
Speaker 5: excitement I think about the fact that they are self
Speaker 5: governing and the fact that they are empowering women and
Speaker 5: those kinds of activities, especially on the part of the
Speaker 5: women's movement. Congress star just continue to you know, they've
Speaker 5: built an alternative justice system. They are increasingly turning their
Speaker 5: sort of economy as much as is feasible, and it's
Speaker 5: a slow process, but into it more of a cooperative economy.
Speaker 5: So all of those things are very much underway there.
Speaker 5: And education is a huge part of that.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, that's that's also true, it really is.
Speaker 4: But just to speak to kind of the other side
Speaker 4: of that, you know, Robert asked, sort of what is
Speaker 4: life like, say, in a place like Commushula right now?
Speaker 4: You know, I think in some ways it's a lot
Speaker 4: like it was when when I was in a place
Speaker 4: called Zirgon, which is another frontline city where at the
Speaker 4: same time Debbie's describing people, life goes on. People trying
Speaker 4: to build up civil society, They're trying to organize the
Speaker 4: communes and the cooperatives. At the same time, there's a
Speaker 4: tremendous fear and uncertainty, fear in an immediate sense around
Speaker 4: these drone strikes. I mean, you guys have been there too,
Speaker 4: write like I've been home, I think eleven months now,
Speaker 4: and I still every time I hear a small airplane,
Speaker 4: my body, just even if my brain knows that it's
Speaker 4: just a plane, like, my body's convinced it's a Turkish drone.
Speaker 4: And imagine, you know you live your whole life in
Speaker 4: a place like that, or you've spent the last ten years,
Speaker 4: So a lot of people are living in this constant
Speaker 4: state of fear an uncertainty.
Speaker 3: Even on a practical level.
Speaker 4: You know, say you're a farmer and you're going to
Speaker 4: plant your seats this year, do you know that you're
Speaker 4: even going to have your land in a month or
Speaker 4: six months? You know, people are taking Turkey's threat of
Speaker 4: an invasion seriously. It hasn't happened again since twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: but I can tell you I talk to people there
Speaker 4: almost every day, and they're taking it extremely seriously. So
Speaker 4: there's kind of this idea of impending invasion sort of
Speaker 4: hangs like a cloud over daily life in so many ways.
Speaker 4: And on top of all of that, of course, since
Speaker 4: I left Northeast Syria, there was this major wave of
Speaker 4: attacks against civilian infrastructure right around the time you were
Speaker 4: there last, James, you know, and you can probably speak
Speaker 4: to it more, but I mean we're talking about power
Speaker 4: stations and oil wells and hospitals and schools and food
Speaker 4: storage facilities. So they're still really reeling from these infrastructure attacks.
Speaker 5: Cutting off electricity to a million people at a time
Speaker 5: and water supplies.
Speaker 1: Which is about a third of the population of the region.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, war crimes. There's another word
Speaker 3: for it, that's what they're called.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very jarring experience at East in my
Speaker 2: time there, which is much briefer, and then the amount
Speaker 2: of time both of you have spent there to go
Speaker 2: out in the daytime and talk to people and see
Speaker 2: this incredible optimism for like we are building a different
Speaker 2: worlds and like it's there and you can see it
Speaker 2: and we're moving towards it. It's not like, you know,
Speaker 2: we're building a different world when we have encampments on
Speaker 2: campus too, But this is a tangible societal product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, and that it speaks to that's why the
Speaker 1: attacks Turkey is carrying out take the form they're taking, right,
Speaker 1: because the priority, the primary strength of the self administration
Speaker 1: is not in its arms. It's in its ability to
Speaker 1: provide a functional civil society that people are motivated to
Speaker 1: take part in, which is why their primary weapon is
Speaker 1: to try to destroy the ability of people to live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's what it.
Speaker 2: Feels like, like you know my experience with a brief
Speaker 2: you know, we lost electricity every night. People are not
Speaker 2: willing or people are less willing to go out and
Speaker 2: drive long distances after dark. There is very clearly damage
Speaker 2: to the infrastructure. You know, I was in a couple
Speaker 2: of different places. One of them was having issues getting
Speaker 2: getting water pumped. There are massive funerals right for people
Speaker 2: who have been killed, and you get to see this
Speaker 2: what is like it's a beautiful spectacle in a sense,
Speaker 2: but also like, you know, you can't spend a week
Speaker 2: in Roger were a Nazi a little baby say goodbye
Speaker 2: to their dad or just a dead baby, and that's
Speaker 2: that's terrible, you know. And like the one thing that
Speaker 2: I noticed, which I think people might not have picked
Speaker 2: up on, just sort of consuming media the presence of
Speaker 2: people hop about martyrs as they call them, right shaheeds.
Speaker 2: It's so it's everywhere, Like from the first place I
Speaker 2: step foot across the river, you know, there were these portraits,
Speaker 2: these yellow and green portraits on around about since cities
Speaker 2: and people's homes. Like the scale of the sacrifice both
Speaker 2: to build this project and to defeat ISIS, I think
Speaker 2: is very hot. I mean in the United States has
Speaker 2: been more for most of our lives, but it has
Speaker 2: nowhere near the same impact on our data the lives
Speaker 2: it has had there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 5: There's not a family really in Rogeval. When you spend
Speaker 5: some time there and you meet with different people, there's
Speaker 5: not a single family that hasn't lost somebody. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's thirteen thousand people in the fight against ISIS alone
Speaker 5: and now, and not to mention, for example, the two
Speaker 5: hundred thousand people who were displaced when Turkey is you know,
Speaker 5: jihadi malicious invaded Afrin, the westernmost region. So it's it's
Speaker 5: absolutely effect of everyday life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every time I spend a lot of time volunteering
Speaker 2: at the border, as people listening know, and every time
Speaker 2: we meet Kurdish people often they're from Northern Kurdistan, which
Speaker 2: is in Turkey under in control of the Turkish State.
Speaker 2: I guess even like the volunteers who are not super
Speaker 2: briefed out jaba, who are just people who want to help.
Speaker 2: Like everyone knows what it means when people when you
Speaker 2: talk to people and they have the little green picture
Speaker 2: of the little little yellow picture on them, Yeah, which
Speaker 2: is it's a profound part of the lived experience of
Speaker 2: being part of the Kurdish freedom movement or just existing
Speaker 2: as a Kurdish person in that area. And that's it's
Speaker 2: it's really hard to grasp the scale of that.
Speaker 3: No, it's so true.
Speaker 4: I mean, it just makes me think that it's kind
Speaker 4: of related to this larger sort of spirit of sacrifice
Speaker 4: that's part of what the movement calls, like a revolutionary personality.
Speaker 4: You know, in a lot of ways, the families of
Speaker 4: you know what, they call them martyrs, they also see
Speaker 4: it as their sacrifice, it's their contribution to the movement.
Speaker 4: And it's it's easy for I think Westerners to kind of,
Speaker 4: I don't know, dismiss it or get really uncomfortable with it.
Speaker 4: We're not familiar with that on a cultural level as
Speaker 4: much but I think it's it's a mistake to see
Speaker 4: it that way. I think there's something incredibly profound about
Speaker 4: it that has to do with the way that people
Speaker 4: really identify their whole lives, the meaning of their lives
Speaker 4: with the revolution, with the movement, that that is what,
Speaker 4: that is the purpose of their life, that's the purpose
Speaker 4: of the life of their their families, and come what may,
Speaker 4: that's something that you know, movements here can't really relate
Speaker 4: to in the same way.
Speaker 1: Yet, I think, yeah, and I kind of want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that. We're gonna We're
Speaker 1: gonna throw one last time to adds and then we'll
Speaker 1: come back and kind of flesh out this discussion, and
Speaker 1: we're back talking about like what it means to be
Speaker 1: part of a revolution as opposed to someone who has
Speaker 1: revolutionary sympathies, which it's easy to be, and we have
Speaker 1: a lot of those in the United States. I'm going
Speaker 1: to guess most of the people listening to this show
Speaker 1: have least some of those, right. Whether or not you
Speaker 1: think there's any realistic chance of seeing that during your
Speaker 1: own life, it's a very different thing from being from
Speaker 1: living it, which people do you know about three million
Speaker 1: of them in Rojava every day, and the sacrifice is
Speaker 1: a part of it. The kind of continual conflict is
Speaker 1: another part of it, because you know, it's worth emphasizing
Speaker 1: we're about a decade into the project right now, right
Speaker 1: if we consider that being from you know, the start
Speaker 1: of the self administration in varying fashions, and that's not
Speaker 1: like it's not a perfectly even process, right because it
Speaker 1: occurred as part of this series of broader conflicts. But
Speaker 1: what you've seen is both the retreat of the government
Speaker 1: that had formerly controlled the area. You've seen a successful
Speaker 1: war prosecuted against isis you've seen when you could look
Speaker 1: at as one conflict or kind of a series of
Speaker 1: conflicts with both these Turkish backed militias and the Turkish
Speaker 1: military itself. And then this also this continuing conflict both
Speaker 1: with the environment, you know, just because that that is
Speaker 1: really that that's a force at work here, the Cold War,
Speaker 1: that kind of that's not even really a perfect way
Speaker 1: of describing the situation with the the Assad regime and
Speaker 1: with you know, their their backers and their Russian government,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's it's a complex, interwoven series of conflict.
Speaker 1: But but kind of the result is just a life
Speaker 1: of conflict for the people who are are part of
Speaker 1: this revolution as sort of a just a fact of
Speaker 1: daily life. And I think that is really hard to grasp.
Speaker 2: Mmm.
Speaker 3: I think that's true.
Speaker 4: And I think there's there's part of it, like you say,
Speaker 4: that has to do with this the sort of objective situation,
Speaker 4: with the conditions that people are living in, this perpetual
Speaker 4: conflict that you're talking about, And at the same time,
Speaker 4: I think there's also an aspect that's more like, I
Speaker 4: don't know, like.
Speaker 3: Subjective, you could call it.
Speaker 4: It has to do with the kind of movement that
Speaker 4: they've really actively been building for themselves and the kind
Speaker 4: of spirit that their movement has taken on that they've
Speaker 4: cultivated themselves, sort of painstaking me for years. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think one of the things that I know, Debbie
Speaker 4: and I really want to get to in our conversations
Speaker 4: with the speaking tour that we're working on, which is
Speaker 4: coming up later later this month on the West Coast,
Speaker 4: is we really, well, we want people to be.
Speaker 3: Inspired by this revolution.
Speaker 4: We really don't want people to just see it as
Speaker 4: this very like other thing on the other side of
Speaker 4: the world, you know, even those who are really supportive,
Speaker 4: especially as you know anarchistory, say, fellow travelers, we have
Speaker 4: a tendency to kind of maybe oversimplify or romanticize what's
Speaker 4: happening over there and think, oh, well, you know, if
Speaker 4: the state could just collapse here, I'm sure everybody would
Speaker 4: just sort of like melt into an anarchist utopia of statelessness.
Speaker 3: And that would be a mistake too.
Speaker 4: I think the truth is that what Rojava shows you
Speaker 4: is a real revolution is incredibly messy, and they only
Speaker 4: were able to kind of face the threats and the
Speaker 4: opportunities that crisis brought to them in Syria because of
Speaker 4: the kind of movement they had built for themselves, and
Speaker 4: they had these practical tools to kind of help local
Speaker 4: communities govern themselves in that sort of chaos in the
Speaker 4: power vacuum that arose. And you know, in a moment
Speaker 4: like this the world over, especially here in the United States,
Speaker 4: you know, we're the crises that we're facing, the crisis
Speaker 4: that we're looking down the barrel of. I think there's
Speaker 4: been no more kind of relevant or urgent time to
Speaker 4: think about how those lessons actually could apply here and
Speaker 4: what it means for us, what kind of movement do
Speaker 4: we need to build to be ready for that moment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I really agree, And Robert, I'm glad
Speaker 5: you mentioned, you know, the fact that the revolution is
Speaker 5: over ten years old, because I think, you know, and
Speaker 5: to follow up sort of just on what Arthur was
Speaker 5: saying that sort of sometimes the crises that we face
Speaker 5: environmentally logical, global warming and not to mention democracy itself,
Speaker 5: you know, can seem almost paralyzing, or that we're constantly
Speaker 5: in a state of reaction. But one of the things
Speaker 5: that the revolution in Rojev teaches us is that, first
Speaker 5: of all, that moments of crisis can also be moments
Speaker 5: of great transformation, but really only if we're prepared for them.
Speaker 5: And that's why, you know, whenever I talk about the
Speaker 5: Rojeva project, I feel it's important to remind people that
Speaker 5: it didn't just spring miraculously out of nowhere in the
Speaker 5: moment of the Syrian Civil War. The folks on the
Speaker 5: ground there had really been preparing for years, I mean decades,
Speaker 5: even for the opportunity that opened up for them during
Speaker 5: the Syrian Civil War. And in various ways, of course,
Speaker 5: they were educating themselves on radical history and particular understanding
Speaker 5: you know, the failures of classical Marxism, Leninism, you know,
Speaker 5: which had been embraced previously by the PKK, and and
Speaker 5: putting also into practice clandestinely the kinds of grassroots democratic
Speaker 5: social structures that we see operating on the ground there today.
Speaker 5: So I think that that's one of the lessons that
Speaker 5: we hear in the US can absorb that, you know,
Speaker 5: that we need to be able to exploit the crisis
Speaker 5: of legitimacy that's growing here today, thinking about what kind
Speaker 5: of alternatives we want to build and showing people that
Speaker 5: those alternatives exists, you know those yeah, that, and you
Speaker 5: know that's includes engaging in a kind of prefigurative politics
Speaker 5: that that really focuses on things like dual power, you know,
Speaker 5: cooperative economic project but also local assembly democratic politics. So
Speaker 5: that's one of the things that I'm also really excited
Speaker 5: about talking about talking about as Arthur and I make
Speaker 5: our way from Seattle down to San Francisco and Oakland
Speaker 5: during the course of these six presentations and chats and
Speaker 5: talks and discussions that we're really excited about having beginning
Speaker 5: next weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's let's let's provide people with a
Speaker 1: little bit of information on how you know they might
Speaker 1: be able to attend and take part in that. So
Speaker 1: what what should folks look up and look into if
Speaker 1: they if they're interested in where are you guys going
Speaker 1: to be?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4: I think the best thing people can do is go
Speaker 4: to defend dot org. That's the website for the Emergency
Speaker 4: Committee for Rojeva, our group. But right there at the
Speaker 4: front page, you're going to see a poster for our
Speaker 4: tour that you can click on. It'll take you to
Speaker 4: links for all the different stops that we're going to do.
Speaker 4: We're going to be making our way all the way
Speaker 4: from Bellingham, Washington, which is up near the border of.
Speaker 3: Canada, down to the Bay Area, and you know, we
Speaker 3: really wish we could make more cities.
Speaker 4: There are a couple events that are our comrades and
Speaker 4: colleagues are organizing on the East Coast around the same timeframe,
Speaker 4: so be sure to look up the calendar on our website.
Speaker 3: But people can go to defend dot org to hear more.
Speaker 4: But the basic idea, like Debbie said, is we want
Speaker 4: to talk to people not only about what's going on
Speaker 4: in Rogevo. Why we think it matters how they can
Speaker 4: stand in solidarity. But we want to talk about what
Speaker 4: we're going to do in our own communities to take
Speaker 4: those lessons and to apply them to our own context.
Speaker 4: We want to help connect people who are doing you know,
Speaker 4: real community organizing in local movements, and to try to
Speaker 4: kind of inspire and strengthen what's already going on, rather
Speaker 4: than just to see this as being strictly about Roseevolk,
Speaker 4: because I mean, y'all probably were told the same thing
Speaker 4: when when you're over there and you ask people what
Speaker 4: can we do to support, one of the things they'll
Speaker 4: tell you is you've got to organize the revolution at home.
Speaker 3: And that's on us. You know, it's easier said than done, right,
Speaker 3: and we're not saying we have.
Speaker 4: All the answers, but what we do want to do
Speaker 4: is to invite local grassroots activists especially to come join
Speaker 4: the discussion and let's talk together about what it would
Speaker 4: mean to apply these basic principles, not to copy and
Speaker 4: paste them, but to apply these basic principles and lessons,
Speaker 4: principles of direct democracy, local autonomy, you know, cooperation, feminism.
Speaker 4: We haven't even talked about how central, you know, gender
Speaker 4: liberation is.
Speaker 3: To the Kurdish freedom movement. How do we apply these
Speaker 3: things in our own communities.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And one of the things, by the way, if
Speaker 5: people are interested in getting some more detail and a
Speaker 5: real inside look at what is going on in Rojaeven
Speaker 5: detail is that Arthur has two pieces in the magazine
Speaker 5: Strange Matters, which is also online, which are just terrific
Speaker 5: and they're part of a series that he's going to
Speaker 5: be doing, i think monthly over the next few months.
Speaker 5: And so that's some great background as well.
Speaker 2: Aw shucks, Yeah, it's fantastic, Stev.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, check that out obviously, folks, if you haven't. We've
Speaker 1: also got a podcast series, The Women's War, that covers
Speaker 1: the earlier history of the Rajavan Revolution up to about
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, late twenty nineteen, which will cover quite a
Speaker 1: bit of the of the impact that kind of this
Speaker 1: sort of feminist lens has had on what's happening over
Speaker 1: there and how it's actually persisted, you know, under the
Speaker 1: conditions that are really kind of almost impossibly challenging when
Speaker 1: you when you look at what these people are up again,
Speaker 1: which is part of again, I guess ultimately why as
Speaker 1: we've repeatedly come back to I think this is so
Speaker 1: important for people in the West to study as things
Speaker 1: get worse for a lot of folks here and as
Speaker 1: we attempt to arrest and take charge of the situation
Speaker 1: in our own lives. You know, we have all these
Speaker 1: questions about how do we stop our government from arming
Speaker 1: not just Turkey, but all of these regimes around the
Speaker 1: world that are doing such terrible things. How do we stop,
Speaker 1: how do we arrest you know, these problems that are
Speaker 1: continuing to affect you know, really ultimately billions of people
Speaker 1: around the world. It's taking charge of our own lives,
Speaker 1: and the same way that these people have. It's kind
Speaker 1: of making that slogan of the Rejavian Revolution, you know,
Speaker 1: resistance is life. Actually embracing that in a way that matters,
Speaker 1: And when you focus on sort of the challenges to
Speaker 1: like the sheer amount of work that has to be
Speaker 1: done here, the very primitive state of any kind of
Speaker 1: meaningful resistance, the relatively primitive state of organizing on the left,
Speaker 1: compared to, for example, the organizing that the right does
Speaker 1: in tandem with paramilitaries in the state, it can seem
Speaker 1: like an impossible challenge, but ten years on, the people
Speaker 1: in Northeast Syria are still are still fighting, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think you have to. I think paying attention
Speaker 1: to that makes it clear that it is actually possible
Speaker 1: to win.
Speaker 3: So true.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that's kind of it for us today.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else we want to plug? I just
Speaker 1: wanted to go out on a better note.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm writing a piece for Kurdish Piece Institute. I'm
Speaker 2: manifesting this on the podcast, so I've actually write it
Speaker 2: about me and Ma Kurtis stan S solidarity.
Speaker 1: Which I think is cool, so great topic.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I don't think we have a lot of time,
Speaker 2: but I think that one thing that I've learned from
Speaker 2: the friends in roche is that, like, even when you
Speaker 2: are going through difficulties, you can still stand in solidarity
Speaker 2: with other people. And God knows, we're all going through
Speaker 2: difficulties in economic and political and state violence terms in
Speaker 2: this country, and I think that like one thing I
Speaker 2: really took from that was that it's never too hard
Speaker 2: for you to be in solidarity. And I hope that
Speaker 2: folks who are in this country will appreciate that and
Speaker 2: be in solidarity with people in Rocheba as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, Debbie Arthur, Thank you both so much for
Speaker 1: being here with us, and thank you for continuing to
Speaker 1: do the work that you do to keep this topic
Speaker 1: alive in people's hearts and minds.
Speaker 3: Thank you all so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, always happy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, keep up the great work yourselves.
Speaker 1: All right, everybody, that's the episode. We will be back tomorrow,
Speaker 1: unless this comes out on a Friday, in which case
Speaker 1: we might not be back tomorrow, but we'll be back,
Speaker 1: you know, Monday. You understand how this works at this point, right.
Speaker 3: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 4: monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.