Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me James
Speaker 2: today and I'm joined by Danny. Danny's an engineering photographer
Speaker 2: who lived in North East Syria from twenty eighteen until
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three and a founding member of the RISE,
Speaker 2: which is the Rajarva Information Center if you're not familiar,
Speaker 2: and she worked for self administration Civil Engineering while she
Speaker 2: was there. Welcome to show Danny.
Speaker 3: Hi James, it's really good to be on Yeah.
Speaker 2: Jas, thanks thanks for coming. I know it's like a
Speaker 2: stressful time. So what I thought we would do is
Speaker 2: there's been a lot of reporting on Syria that people
Speaker 2: have probably seen if they're living in the US or
Speaker 2: the UK. Nearly all of it has either excluded or
Speaker 2: like footnoted what's happening in North and East Syria and
Speaker 2: specifically in the areas that are under a self administration.
Speaker 2: So I was hoping today we could give people a
Speaker 2: little more introduction to what's happening there. There's been a
Speaker 2: lot of like jubilation about what's happening in Syria, and
Speaker 2: things have been very far from universally positive.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: There's a massive dis placement of civilians, ethnic lensing of
Speaker 2: areas that have been captured by the Turkish Baksterian National
Speaker 2: Army and genuine like peril for the self administration project,
Speaker 2: the like of which we haven't seen for a long time.
Speaker 2: So perhaps if listeners an't familiar, would you give them
Speaker 2: the real basics of the self administration of the AA
Speaker 2: ANDES and what it means and what's going on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's a big question because it's like it's
Speaker 3: a big project. It's been going on for quite some time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it really has. It's kind of been lost in discussions
Speaker 3: and news about the Serian Civil War because it has
Speaker 3: been such a complex, multipolar, multi access, multi ethnic conflict,
Speaker 3: and it's been going on for what like thirteen fourteen
Speaker 3: years now, yeah, coming up to fourteen years. The Kurds
Speaker 3: in the northeast had been preparing for some time before
Speaker 3: the outbreak of civil war back in twenty eleven for
Speaker 3: something like this. Obviously they didn't they didn't know this
Speaker 3: was going to happen. That they had been working on
Speaker 3: revolutionary emancipation for decades, and in particular since around two thousand,
Speaker 3: they've been working on this concept of democratic and federalism,
Speaker 3: which is moving away from a sort of what they
Speaker 3: call an old paradigm of Marxist Leninist thought to this
Speaker 3: system they've now quite effectively built up there where democracy
Speaker 3: is bottom up. It's structured around small communes and self
Speaker 3: organizing units, cooperatives. There's a market economy, but it's not
Speaker 3: a catalyst economy where there's sort of radical emancipation of
Speaker 3: oppressed to people's particular women who are really centered in
Speaker 3: the revolutionary process and organizing there. And I think because
Speaker 3: they maybe you can't call them conflict avoided, that they
Speaker 3: haven't avoided conflict. They very famously defeated Isis amongst other
Speaker 3: groups in the northeast, they fought against Alan's Refront and
Speaker 3: various other Hadi groups. They also didn't enter into serious
Speaker 3: conflict with either their FSA as they were, or the
Speaker 3: regime and the assad regime, and so they kind of
Speaker 3: managed to carve out a sort of democratic and semi enclave.
Speaker 3: I mean people who describe it as a state that
Speaker 3: they quite vehemently say it's not a state in the
Speaker 3: northeast of Syria. Whilst the worst of the fighting was
Speaker 3: between the Assid regime and the FSA and groups that
Speaker 3: came out of the FSA in the west and south
Speaker 3: of the country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's very good summary. I think like
Speaker 2: it gets missed maybe because of how relatively successful it's
Speaker 2: been compared to other democratization projects within Syria. It gets
Speaker 2: missed that like when people are talking about what will
Speaker 2: happen in Syria now bizarrely and I don't quite like
Speaker 2: I don't quite understand how we get here, but people
Speaker 2: seem to go to like Libya or I understand how
Speaker 2: we get here process like orientalism and ignorance, but we
Speaker 2: have a functioning democracy an example of like, it's not
Speaker 2: just Kurdish people, right, it's lots of communities living together
Speaker 2: in northern East Syria, and because of democratic and federalism
Speaker 2: they're able to coexist and still feel that they have
Speaker 2: enough sovereignty to be safe. Is that fair?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, absolutely, And I think something that it's hard
Speaker 3: to convey or fully understand unless you spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time there or you're deeply involved with any of
Speaker 3: these communities, is quite how hard that was to do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of different ethnic groups, political groups that hate
Speaker 3: each other, you know. Yeah, the Kurds, they brought in
Speaker 3: lots of different policies like their right to be taught
Speaker 3: in your mother tongue. When they took power twenty twelve onwards,
Speaker 3: they were very keen not to just sort of replace
Speaker 3: everything with Kurdish, make a Kurdish state, you know, start
Speaker 3: being the oppressor and sort of be oppressed. They made
Speaker 3: sure that they continue us An Arabic as the majority
Speaker 3: language because it is the majority language. That the north
Speaker 3: and east of Syria is still an Arab majority area,
Speaker 3: and this is despite the fact that they've been pretty
Speaker 3: horrendously oppressed by the Arab population through the Bath Party
Speaker 3: and its oppressive systems for decades. So it has been
Speaker 3: a pretty hard ongoing process to negotiate and to put
Speaker 3: aside pretty serious conflicts between quite a few different groups
Speaker 3: that exist there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it won't be any easier of across the whole
Speaker 2: country than it was there, but like, they have a
Speaker 2: system that works, and it's kind of frustrating to see
Speaker 2: these discussions of what happens next that just ignore the
Speaker 2: fact that there's a functioning multi ethnic democracy right there.
Speaker 2: So if we do just look at women's liberation, you know,
Speaker 2: I've reported from lots of places around the world, lots
Speaker 2: of places in that part of the world, and the
Speaker 2: difference is profound in like everyday life. It's not just
Speaker 2: a kind of rhetorical commitment, right, Like, at least my
Speaker 2: impression as a man is that, like, this is a
Speaker 2: revolution by women, not a revolution and it's about women.
Speaker 2: It's not a revolution by men that like seeks to
Speaker 2: liberate women, says it's going to liberate women, you know,
Speaker 2: with the US in verie Afghanistan saying it's going to
Speaker 2: liberate women, and look what we got. And like the
Speaker 2: difference in just the way people are able to live,
Speaker 2: like every aspect of everyday life is completely different. But
Speaker 2: that's in danger right now. The narrative I guess that
Speaker 2: people will be familiar with from Syria is that the
Speaker 2: state has been defeated, the A Sad regime has been defeated,
Speaker 2: and that therefore the revolution has succeeded. But the A
Speaker 2: Sad regime is not the only state in play in Syria, right, So,
Speaker 2: can you explain the Turkish antipathy to the project in
Speaker 2: northern East Syria and how that's manifesting itself currently.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty hard to discuss any of the stuff
Speaker 3: without talking about Turkey and without understanding where they're coming from. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's something that is said enough or understood
Speaker 3: enough that the modern state of Turkey is an nationalist project.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't say that as a slur.
Speaker 3: That's like a basic founding principle of the state. It's
Speaker 3: a state founded on genocide and the mass for demographic
Speaker 3: change across the whole country. And it's continued that way,
Speaker 3: and there have been reforms for sure, but that's still
Speaker 3: a founding principle. And even now sort of speaking a
Speaker 3: non Turkish language in the Turkish Parliament is a pretty
Speaker 3: serious violation. And the size of Turkey, the size of
Speaker 3: its economy, the size of its military, the regional power
Speaker 3: status they have in the Middle East means that they
Speaker 3: have an enormous gravity. They have an enormous amount of
Speaker 3: power over Syria. A lot of the goods and services
Speaker 3: that Syria relies on coming through Turkey or rely on
Speaker 3: the Turkish industry, and the Turkish military is a huge
Speaker 3: supporter of their groups in the northwestam and the Syrian
Speaker 3: National Army, and of course the Kurdish question within Turkey
Speaker 3: is the main reason for their antipathy towards the What's
Speaker 3: been built up in North East Syria. As much as
Speaker 3: the self determination for oppressed people's minorities is something that's
Speaker 3: an issue, the fact that it's Kurdish led, and in
Speaker 3: particular it's emancipating for Kurdish people threatens this nationalist aspect
Speaker 3: of their state, and they kind of they see it
Speaker 3: something that needs to be nipped in the Bud right,
Speaker 3: and they've they've sort of done that with Northern Iraq,
Speaker 3: that the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq by essentially vassalizing
Speaker 3: the KDP, the main party there, and they know they
Speaker 3: can't do the same in North Eastyria, and the military
Speaker 3: option is their best chance, their best hope of nipping
Speaker 3: Kurdish emancipation in Kurdish sub determination in the Bud and
Speaker 3: preventing it from sort of snowboarding across the region.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we should probably mention that, Like I
Speaker 2: guess if we talk about like the electoral method or
Speaker 2: the electoral path people in Turkish Kurdistan, in Northern Kurdistan,
Speaker 2: if you want to call it. In addition to the
Speaker 2: arms struggle which has been there since nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: they have also like tried to vote and repeatedly seen
Speaker 2: their votes ignored or changed, or their elected officials removed.
Speaker 2: Like this is within the last year, I'm not talking
Speaker 2: about back in the eighties and nineties, and like Turkey
Speaker 2: has been aggressively attacking any attempts at like self determination
Speaker 2: within the country and then as you say, like militarily
Speaker 2: attacking the Kurdish freedom movement within North and Eassyria. Do
Speaker 2: you want to talk about the Syrian National Army or
Speaker 2: the Turkish back Free Syrian Army, whatever you want to
Speaker 2: call them, and explain, Like, I think part of what
Speaker 2: we're dealing with is like that Turkey has a very
Speaker 2: well established state media project and they seem to do
Speaker 2: very well and like creating viral social media content. So
Speaker 2: people might not be fully familiar with who the SNA
Speaker 2: are and specifically like Turkey's role in creating them. Do
Speaker 2: you want to explain that a bit to people?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is this is one of the
Speaker 3: reasons why I think it's so hard for people to
Speaker 3: report on the Syrian Civil War. It's very hard to
Speaker 3: convey like a simple coherent narrative of one side versus
Speaker 3: the other, you know, like Ukraine versus Russia. The Russian
Speaker 3: world and the Ukrainian world, because there are there are
Speaker 3: so many different groups in the sna IS that it's
Speaker 3: an important one and they are their group. Together with
Speaker 3: this concept of the rebels that have liberated Syria, despite
Speaker 3: the fact that they're not actually part of High Alshan,
Speaker 3: the liberation movement as it calls itself, that have taken
Speaker 3: over the Syria. Yeah, the Syrian National Army, it's it's
Speaker 3: kind of like a loose collection of various some of
Speaker 3: them called themselves brigades or groups. It's essentially a military
Speaker 3: proxy force of Turkey. They don't have a coherent political framework.
Speaker 3: They're not revolutionary groups. They're not liberatory or mancipatory. They
Speaker 3: wouldn't describe themselves as that in the same way that
Speaker 3: maybe HTS would. I mean, the Kurds in North Eastyria
Speaker 3: describe them as gangs, which kind of sounds like a
Speaker 3: propagana term, but when you actually look at what they do,
Speaker 3: they really are like a sort of a criminal enterprise,
Speaker 3: a criminal gang that's used as a convenient proxy for
Speaker 3: force by Turkey because ultimately Turkey has like a massive
Speaker 3: military then maybe is quite underfunded and not particularly ast
Speaker 3: After the air force has suffered pretty seriously from the
Speaker 3: fallout of the cop in twenty sixteen. But the army
Speaker 3: is massive, it's relatively well funded, in their drone program
Speaker 3: is huge. The thing that they struggle with is the
Speaker 3: losses that are incurred against Kurdish groups, particularly the PKK
Speaker 3: in the mountains between Ark and Turkey. And they need
Speaker 3: to control that because they realized that they've been fighting
Speaker 3: military because as you say, since the early nineteen eighties,
Speaker 3: and they can't have a vitnance situation right of a
Speaker 3: mass movement against their military occupation and against their military efforts.
Speaker 3: And Syria, they can't afford financially or politically to get
Speaker 3: into a quagmire there, and so by funding this sort
Speaker 3: of collection of groups called the SNA, that's their way
Speaker 3: of being able to incur pretty massive losses without having
Speaker 3: to report on it, without that creating unrest or opposition
Speaker 3: within the Turkish population of Turkey.
Speaker 2: Right, And I think especially when like some of the
Speaker 2: things the SNA have done, which we can maybe get
Speaker 2: into in MANPJ like, it gives them a deniability that
Speaker 2: wouldn't exist if that was regular soldiers doing that, Like
Speaker 2: some stuff which is war crimes is I guess a
Speaker 2: nice way of saying it, like a more sanitized way
Speaker 2: of saying it. Horrific stuff, really terrible stuff. This has
Speaker 2: been happening since at least twenty eighteen. But Turkey doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be held accountable for that because, like you said,
Speaker 2: it's not Turkish, it's not the Turkish Army. Do you
Speaker 2: want to explain how the situation in North Syria has
Speaker 2: changed since what was it like two weeks ago? A
Speaker 2: week ago? I guess that they moved south from Aleppo
Speaker 2: and start the HTS Largy with some support from SNA,
Speaker 2: moved towards Damascus, and then the SNA launched its own
Speaker 2: assault on the Self Administration. Can you explain a little
Speaker 2: bit of what's happened there in terms of displacement and
Speaker 2: in terms of the terrain that's the SNA have captured.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been very fast moving now, as you say,
Speaker 3: like it's only been two weeks since the Battle Aleppos started,
Speaker 3: if you call it a battle. So the SDH, so
Speaker 3: this is like the alliance of military groups that falls
Speaker 3: under the remit of the Self Administration in the north
Speaker 3: East Siria. So the YPG and the YPG are like
Speaker 3: the most famous and largest components of this force, but
Speaker 3: there are a whole bunch of Arab and Syrian and
Speaker 3: Armenian units within the SDF. They held this sort of
Speaker 3: salient pushing out into northwest Aria towards Afrin, which was
Speaker 3: captured by the SNA in Turkey in twenty eighteen. That
Speaker 3: was on one side finded by HTS and on the
Speaker 3: other by the SNA. When things really kicked off, the
Speaker 3: SNA started a pretty concerned campaign to capture this area
Speaker 3: and own as Shedpa, and because of its position and
Speaker 3: it's relatively difficult terrain and difficult logitical position to resupply,
Speaker 3: they pulled back from that towards Aleppo and man Beach,
Speaker 3: which is the only major city that the SDS still
Speaker 3: held on the west of the Euphrates. It's the area
Speaker 3: closest to Aleppo. They got hit pretty hard. If you
Speaker 3: follow a live upday map or and you vie sort
Speaker 3: of update maps, it looked like that. That's pretty quickly. Actually,
Speaker 3: it ended up being a sort of large gray zone
Speaker 3: of the gorilla attacks and potential still ongoing. It's been
Speaker 3: really murking hot tell what's going on there, But essentially
Speaker 3: there's a large area of uncontrolled but heavily contested territory
Speaker 3: between Aleppo and the Euphrates River now and which the
Speaker 3: SDF and the SNA have been fighting over.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 3: One of the curious things for me is that the
Speaker 3: Turkish Air Force and literally did not get involved for
Speaker 3: a while, but after about a week they did, and
Speaker 3: they started hitting man Beach very very heavily. And at
Speaker 3: that point, when the center of man Beach started being
Speaker 3: contested and for over, the US stepped in. We don't
Speaker 3: know the details of it, but there seems to have
Speaker 3: been some kind of negotiation whereby the suggestion is that
Speaker 3: if the SDF fighters pulled back across the Euphrates, the
Speaker 3: SDF would assure their protection from any further resorts. We
Speaker 3: don't know how true that is, and we know that
Speaker 3: today further negotiations on this failed. But it's really hard
Speaker 3: to tell right now as we speak what's disinformation and
Speaker 3: what's truth, because stuff's only coming out officially in ribs.
Speaker 2: Traps, yeah, and stuff's coming out unofficially often that it's
Speaker 2: just not true, yeah, every five minutes and getting blasted
Speaker 2: by maybe people who just don't understand or who do understand,
Speaker 2: but have a certain agenda to push on social media,
Speaker 2: especially but on telegram too, and it can be really confusing,
Speaker 2: it's really frustrating.
Speaker 3: Yeah. For instance, like just before we came on air,
Speaker 3: I saw a couple of videos being posted by pro
Speaker 3: Turkish accounts purportedly showing mass troop concentrations lined up against
Speaker 3: this border war waiting to invade. And I realized that
Speaker 3: they were from two thousand and nineteen, when Sarah Kane
Speaker 3: and Tellerbayad were invaded, and they were just reposting material
Speaker 3: from then, you know, as disinformation on these movements and
Speaker 3: whether in Ta's going to happen, what the negotiations between
Speaker 3: the US and Turkey turned out to be. And the
Speaker 3: truth is like right now, we don't know exactly what's
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you probably won't and that's probably a
Speaker 2: good thing. One other thing is that like the SDF
Speaker 2: tends to have much better operational security discipline than the
Speaker 2: SNA does, so you won't see as much of like
Speaker 2: media with an SDF spin or people directly streaming. I mean,
Speaker 2: one thing the SDNA likes to do is a war
Speaker 2: crime and then post it on Telegram and so like
Speaker 2: it can be easy to only see that and be like,
Speaker 2: oh god, it's terrible, and it is terrible. Those things
Speaker 2: are horrific. But like, because you're not seeing when the
Speaker 2: SDF is making movements or making advances until a bit later,
Speaker 2: until you get something from like an official press channel,
Speaker 2: it can give the impression that the SNA is just
Speaker 2: romping around, which is not the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we saw this a few times when manbut is
Speaker 3: reported to being captured by the SNA and they posted
Speaker 3: video of themselves in the middle of the city, and
Speaker 3: then an hour later, the SDF posted a video from
Speaker 3: the center of the city of twenty or thirty dead
Speaker 3: SNA litting about the streets and then flying their own flag.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, it's really it's really hard to tell.
Speaker 3: It's also really hard as like anyone who cares about
Speaker 3: the region has been there, is reported on it. Anyone
Speaker 3: interested in the kind of politics that the Kurds are
Speaker 3: built up in the region and others I should says,
Speaker 3: you know, it's been a multithink project if you care
Speaker 3: about that. It's really hard not to be glued to
Speaker 3: social media to see what's going on, but it can
Speaker 3: be quite detrimental to morrow it can be quite an
Speaker 3: active self harm to be like constantly checking on this
Speaker 3: because it's so mucky. Yeah, and as you say, like
Speaker 3: things can turn around within two hours of infer or
Speaker 3: distance for getting out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's it's a super important time
Speaker 2: to be looking at trusted sources and be considering if
Speaker 2: you need to be on telegram that much, something I
Speaker 2: have been considering this weekend. So let's talk about like
Speaker 2: right now, certainly the focus is on Kabani, right, but
Speaker 2: there's also well, there's a lot of the self administration
Speaker 2: that could potentially be under threat if Turkey decides to
Speaker 2: go as hard as as it can against the self administration,
Speaker 2: against the existence of I guess any form of democratic
Speaker 2: project in northern Easteria of attempts to kind of bring
Speaker 2: the whole thing under one government from Damascus. Can you
Speaker 2: explain like what might happen, what people can do, and
Speaker 2: like we should talk about what's at stake as well,
Speaker 2: especially with the prisoner our whole, which maybe we can
Speaker 2: come to after those two things, because I think that's
Speaker 2: a lot to ask you one question, but maybe people
Speaker 2: aren't familiar with our whole. We'll leave that one. But
Speaker 2: can you explain at first, like what could potentially happen
Speaker 2: if Turkey decides to go as hard as it wants
Speaker 2: to hear?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the best way to answer that
Speaker 3: question is to look at what's already happened. So in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen and nineteen, they already captured three significant cities
Speaker 3: and that were under control of the self administration to
Speaker 3: the first and most famously was Afrin, which was in
Speaker 3: the far northwest of the country, like just north of Villeppo,
Speaker 3: sort of jutting out into Turkey. That was a majority
Speaker 3: Kurdish city. I don't know exactly, does it with something
Speaker 3: like eighty or ninety percent, which I think is higher
Speaker 3: than any other city in northern Syria. And it was
Speaker 3: also like it's seen the least fighting of pretty much
Speaker 3: anywhere in Syria by that point. So the war had
Speaker 3: been going on for like what seven years, and Afin
Speaker 3: was pretty much untouched. So it was in a pretty
Speaker 3: good state. And Turkey and the SNA invaded just as
Speaker 3: the war against ISIS was winding down, and I mean,
Speaker 3: it's become a hell on Earth. It's been almost completely depopulated.
Speaker 3: I think it's less than ten percent now Kurdish ethnically,
Speaker 3: it has been ruled by a number of different groups.
Speaker 3: We can say the SNA, but you know, different groups
Speaker 3: within the SNA and have fought over it. At the
Speaker 3: HTS at times have had control over certain parts of
Speaker 3: the area, and there's been a in fighting. There's been
Speaker 3: horrendous war crimes committed, great murder, thousands of disappeared people,
Speaker 3: and as you say, they really like to openly put
Speaker 3: videos out of them committing this stuff. I mean, they're
Speaker 3: pretty shameless about it. There are some pretty disturbing videos
Speaker 3: that they're mutilating the bodies of fallen WIPJ soldiers, of
Speaker 3: coming some re executions, of wiping out whole towns. It's
Speaker 3: been awful. And the same thing happened again in twenty nineteen
Speaker 3: around in October when they captured as Sarah Khane and Talabayad.
Speaker 3: And it's worth also pointing out that these were not
Speaker 3: Kurdish majority city surprise, and so I think that Sarah
Speaker 3: Karney maybe was about fifty percent and Telebiads, which is
Speaker 3: kind of close to Kurbani, I'm pretty sure wasn't Kurlish
Speaker 3: majority city. B was organized under the self administration and
Speaker 3: it was organized quite effectively, and they committed the same
Speaker 3: horrific crimes there. They are an anti Kurdish for so
Speaker 3: if we can say that they are racist, they do
Speaker 3: have a stated goal of committing genocide against the Kurts.
Speaker 3: That's not an exaggeration. There's something they openly say. But
Speaker 3: they don't seem to care who they steal from, or
Speaker 3: who they rape or who they extort. Wherever they go,
Speaker 3: it's death and destruction. And it still is now, And
Speaker 3: there's still something like a quarter of a million internally
Speaker 3: displaced people from these areas in North Essyria hoping to
Speaker 3: go back and now having to see the situation get
Speaker 3: even worse and not knowing if they ever well be
Speaker 3: able to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think like you were talking about, like
Speaker 2: we're seeing it right now in man Beach, right like
Speaker 2: the SNA seems to lie. You be in controlled of
Speaker 2: the city, albeit with YPG fighters kind of boring and
Speaker 2: I guess in a gorilla role, so it would seem
Speaker 2: still fighting there. But where I believe we're on the
Speaker 2: second day of a general strike in man Beach after
Speaker 2: less than a week of the SNA holding it because
Speaker 2: of looting and executions and other war crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is like actually really good political
Speaker 3: education to see what's happening because what's been built up
Speaker 3: in the Northeast has been built up over decades. Right.
Speaker 3: They like to use this anology of the myosolium and
Speaker 3: the fruiting bodies of a mushroom. They appear to magically
Speaker 3: emerge from the earth in the autumn out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: but actually, you know, they've been brewing underground for years before,
Speaker 3: and they use this analogy because it took decades to
Speaker 3: put in place these structures. That's why they were ready
Speaker 3: as soon as the regime the Acid region poured out
Speaker 3: and collapsed in the face of Isis in the early
Speaker 3: stages of the war, they were ready to build up
Speaker 3: these structures. They already had self organized militias, They had
Speaker 3: the economy planned out that they set to work immediately,
Speaker 3: and their SNA don't have any of that. They are
Speaker 3: a force of convenience. They're mostly sort of young men
Speaker 3: who were in groups before that were defeated in Syria
Speaker 3: like Isis, who are simply taking the opportunity to enrich themselves.
Speaker 3: And that's also very convenient for Turkey because they do
Speaker 3: the dirty work against the population of North Easypyria. So
Speaker 3: I think it is worth saying that that aspect of it,
Speaker 3: that preparation, that resilience, is something that also works in
Speaker 3: favor in the event of the worst case of full
Speaker 3: invasion of northern Assyria. I do think they are significantly
Speaker 3: better prepared than they were in twenty eighteen and nineteen.
Speaker 3: And even if the worst happens, even if militarily it's defeated,
Speaker 3: that's not going to be the end of this project, right,
Speaker 3: It's not going to be the end of this emancipation.
Speaker 3: There's now an entire generation of young people in North
Speaker 3: Eastyria who have grown up entirely living amongst a liberated
Speaker 3: and emancipated region and people that's not something you can
Speaker 3: militarily defeat. So I you know, I'm not completely hopeless,
Speaker 3: and obviously I'll be like devastated if the worst does
Speaker 3: happen there, But like, I don't think it means the
Speaker 3: end of this incredible political And it feels wrong to
Speaker 3: call it a project because it's not. It's really is
Speaker 3: a revolution in the every possible meaning of the word,
Speaker 3: and it's deeply embedded. Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think everyone I spoke to there, like
Speaker 2: there's a deeply held conviction that they're not going back
Speaker 2: some people who have seen like first hand the fascist
Speaker 2: violence of ISIS, and fascist is the right word. It's
Speaker 2: something maybe worse than fascism, but like certainly that like
Speaker 2: speaking to women in Chava about how they're not going
Speaker 2: back to the gendered violence of they experience for decades
Speaker 2: to include ISIS, but by no means like only from ISIS.
Speaker 2: And I guess that kind of brings us on to
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk a little bit of the situation
Speaker 2: in the parts of Syria that are controlled by HCS
Speaker 2: and and inso much as they really are controlled, controller
Speaker 2: perhaps are on word like they haven't fully established their
Speaker 2: state project yet, but they're certainly moving towards that they've
Speaker 2: sort of captured the institutions of the state rather than
Speaker 2: destroyed them. You'd spoken about, like there's this very I
Speaker 2: don't know, I think, I guess maybe i'll use an
Speaker 2: examples or I'm phrasing this question in a very meandering way.
Speaker 2: I sort of ce ann clip where they're they're like, Oh,
Speaker 2: we found a guy who's liberally who's like in this
Speaker 2: prison and he was stuck here, and then second part
Speaker 2: of this was not broadcast on CNN, as this person
Speaker 2: turns out to be like an Air Force lieutenant who
Speaker 2: was in fact himself someone who tortured and killed civilians.
Speaker 2: And like, there's this very liberatory, very excited messaging coming
Speaker 2: from media in the West. I guess some of which
Speaker 2: is good, right, Like, it's good that the Assabe regime
Speaker 2: is good, Asab was fucking terrible and tortured and killed
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of his own people. But that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that things are all affected Damascus. So do you
Speaker 2: want to talk a little bit about like some of
Speaker 2: the worrying stuff we see in the last few days
Speaker 2: from those areas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this is something that I worry isn't
Speaker 3: being spoken about enough. I don't, as a non Syrian,
Speaker 3: don't want to say to people, you know, you shouldn't
Speaker 3: be celebrating your own liberation, because people should absolutely should
Speaker 3: be and it's their right to be. And I'm, like it,
Speaker 3: extremely happy that this brutal dictator has gone. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's it's hard to summarize quite how awful he was,
Speaker 3: and it's it's deeply refiltrating that he's probably not going
Speaker 3: to see justice, but it's also really hard to see
Speaker 3: stuff which is really reminiscent of like nineteen seventy nine Tehran,
Speaker 3: two thousand and three Baghdad, of a sort of jubilation,
Speaker 3: whilst at the same time there are videos of sort
Speaker 3: of programs being carried out against minorities, minorities like the
Speaker 3: Allites who were in control, and you don't know if
Speaker 3: the person being executed in the street was a torture
Speaker 3: an intelligence agent, and you don't know who they were.
Speaker 3: But like, this is happening, but you're also seeing like
Speaker 3: sallaphist groups raising their flag, you know, like hardline is
Speaker 3: mis raising their flag in places like the Takia and
Speaker 3: Tatoos that have significant minority populations. I am very I
Speaker 3: mean concerned, is in the right word, Like it's hard
Speaker 3: to feel that spirit of liberation when when you see
Speaker 3: not only these things happening, but that the people who
Speaker 3: have captured these state institutions are admitted former members of
Speaker 3: al Qaida, and they are they are Jihad's hard line
Speaker 3: people that have now got a very evitably made themselves
Speaker 3: about to be moderate. But my guart feeling is that
Speaker 3: we're going to see something like May seventy nine Tehran,
Speaker 3: of a lot of talk of reconciliation, a lot of
Speaker 3: talk of you know, the concerns of the Kurds or
Speaker 3: working with the communists, but you know, mass executions and
Speaker 3: oppression is not far around them corner. And I guess
Speaker 3: when the jubilation dies down, my question is what's going
Speaker 3: to happen when minorities do you demand their rights? Or
Speaker 3: women don't want to write a job in you know,
Speaker 3: inside the building's inst state institutions. And I'm finding it
Speaker 3: very hard to believe that these men who are professed
Speaker 3: is themists are going to allow a moderate future to exist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I don't know. Every day we get different information, right,
Speaker 2: but like, yeah, I don't know if concerned it's the
Speaker 2: right word either, I don't quite know what the word is.
Speaker 2: But like I'm worried. I guess I'm worried that I'm
Speaker 2: especially worried when like, rather than what we saw in
Speaker 2: the self administration was not like a continuation of institutions
Speaker 2: right when the Assad regime left in twenty eleven, in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, and areas that the regime or isis have
Speaker 2: left since then, like it wasn't like Okay, we'll take
Speaker 2: over these institutions and minister them differently, as we will
Speaker 2: build democracy from the bottom up, not we'll just change
Speaker 2: to people in charge versus what it seems like we're
Speaker 2: now seeing for Damascus is like, hey, can the police
Speaker 2: from the cyber regime police stay at work? Which is
Speaker 2: concerning Talking of police, the last thing I wanted to
Speaker 2: address was that our whole camp. I've spoken about it
Speaker 2: before on this show, and people can look back or
Speaker 2: other episodes, but if you've not heard about it, can
Speaker 2: you explain briefly what our whole is and then the
Speaker 2: massive risk that this Turkish backed invasion poses to our
Speaker 2: whole and other camps. I guess the whole is not
Speaker 2: the only camp, just the biggest one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, our whole is a really important point to talk about.
Speaker 3: Our whole is a very large camp. It's hard to
Speaker 3: sum up what kind of camp it is because it's
Speaker 3: so vast and had different sections. It's near Alhasseko, which
Speaker 3: is one of the largest cities in north East Syria.
Speaker 3: It mostly it mostly contains families who were members or
Speaker 3: were resident in the Islamic State when it collapsed. So
Speaker 3: in the beginning of twenty nineteen ISIS was sort of
Speaker 3: squeezed into this little corner in the eastern side of
Speaker 3: Syria between the Euphrates and the Iraqi border, and when
Speaker 3: the state collapsed, for the caliphate collapse, a lot of
Speaker 3: people had nowhere to go, and a lot of them
Speaker 3: were foreignly succoming from abroad. I'm going to say a lot.
Speaker 3: I mean like tens of thousands. There were something like
Speaker 3: twenty thousand families left within SUSA and that was like
Speaker 3: the last parts of the Califate to hold out, and
Speaker 3: they didn't have anywhere to go. And there were already
Speaker 3: camps set up for IDPs for members of ISIS and
Speaker 3: families in North Assyria, but alcohol was rapidly expanded to
Speaker 3: take these on. So it's a sort of semi prison,
Speaker 3: semi open camp that I think peaked at seventy five
Speaker 3: thousand people, which it sounds like a lot on its own,
Speaker 3: but when you consider that a large city in northern
Speaker 3: Eastsyria is about one hundred and fifty thousand people, it
Speaker 3: still is significant. I don't you probably have work of
Speaker 3: recent because I mean, but I think the current population
Speaker 3: is about forty thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it shrunk definitely. I'm not sure what it is exactly.
Speaker 3: The big problem that the self administration have had is multitude.
Speaker 3: Really many of the people there are foreigners. Many of
Speaker 3: them don't have papers. Many of them come from countries
Speaker 3: that I either don't want them back or will almost
Speaker 3: certainly execute them if they're sent back like a rock,
Speaker 3: which is against the policy of the abolition of death penalty.
Speaker 3: Inn Asyria. There are some in al whole, but mostly
Speaker 3: other camps in the North and East Asyria. Former ISIS
Speaker 3: members like Shamama Begam who come from countries like the
Speaker 3: UK who simply won't take them back, and the uk
Speaker 3: IS taken back some families that simply refuses to take
Speaker 3: back their since you joined ISIS, says, you know, card
Speaker 3: carrying members. So they've made a pretty massive effort to
Speaker 3: repatriate as many families as possible. They've made a big
Speaker 3: effort to rehabilitate and deradicalize as many people as possible.
Speaker 3: They have strung the camp massively, but they're still, yeah,
Speaker 3: forty thousand or something left there. And these are like
Speaker 3: really a lot of them are really radical, Like I think,
Speaker 3: I don't know what an exact number is, but something
Speaker 3: in the order of ten thousand of them are still
Speaker 3: like professed being members of ices, and they have a
Speaker 3: lot of children. And this was something that shocked me
Speaker 3: when I was at the end of the Caliphate and
Speaker 3: back Goods and witnessed tens of thousands of people coming out,
Speaker 3: and I could not have imagined how many children that were.
Speaker 3: And this was like what five years ago now coming
Speaker 3: up to six years ago. So some of them who
Speaker 3: were you know, seven, eight, nine years old are now
Speaker 3: like heading towards their mid teens. They've spent their entire
Speaker 3: lives being radicalized, and like what do you do with them?
Speaker 3: And it's no I think there's no coincidence that in
Speaker 3: previous Turkish attacks, because Turkey's been attacking the north and
Speaker 3: East Assyria for the last five six years now through
Speaker 3: the air, through national warfare, and a lot of their
Speaker 3: attacks have focused on trying to break these people out.
Speaker 3: They have bombed the entrances to prisons multiple times, They
Speaker 3: provided funding and arms and ammunition to groups that are
Speaker 3: trying to break them out, and they provide a safe
Speaker 3: passage back to Turkey for those who have managed to escape.
Speaker 3: So it's massively in their favor, but of course it's
Speaker 3: a Pandora's box, because you know, if that does break over,
Speaker 3: and if these people aren't repatriated or aren't you radicalized,
Speaker 3: then that's a lot of people who have pretty much
Speaker 3: only known their whole lives a extremely radical fascist Islamist ideology.
Speaker 3: And I don't think they're just going to give it up. Yeah, No,
Speaker 3: that they're not going to join this moderate future Syria.
Speaker 2: No, And like those people have probably experienced, like probably
Speaker 2: have terrible experiences within that camp, and that's not going
Speaker 2: to make that they don't tend to be moderated and
Speaker 2: sort of pacifying experiences. And I'm sure that they will.
Speaker 2: There'll be a lot of hate coming from there when
Speaker 2: those people come out. And I don't want to lick
Speaker 2: a portion blame too much, but we've had a long
Speaker 2: time to deal with this. The world has had a
Speaker 2: long time to deal with I mean, I would.
Speaker 3: Happily blame this is entirely on the hands of the coalition.
Speaker 3: Northern Assyria is a very poor places. It's deeply impoverished.
Speaker 3: It's been kept in poverished by by sanctions by Turkey.
Speaker 3: You know, the oil refining is that the industry, the
Speaker 3: economy has been smashed to pieces that they've held on
Speaker 3: really well, and that like all credit to them, they
Speaker 3: have maintained this camp. They have tried to give these
Speaker 3: people alive, but it's it's pretty awful conditions. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: this could have been sold if the international community, if
Speaker 3: the coalition, particularly United States, had helped with these repatriations,
Speaker 3: so put political pressure on European comeses some particulars take
Speaker 3: back their citizens and had just provided the funding, you know,
Speaker 3: for they have provided funding. I'm not saying they haven't
Speaker 3: ready much, but like it's a drop in the ocean
Speaker 3: compared to the Department Defense budget. You know, we're talking
Speaker 3: a few tens of millions here and there as opposed
Speaker 3: to a concerted effort to deradicalize and repatriate people that
Speaker 3: could pose a serious threat to Europe and the US.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you've got Britain doing the opposite of
Speaker 2: what's helpful, which is fucking like removing people's passports right
Speaker 2: the naturalizing them, leaving these people stateless and like saying
Speaker 2: it's not our problem, which is pathetic and I'm.
Speaker 3: Very incredibly short sighted. Yeah. You know, I don't like
Speaker 3: using the word terror or terrorism because I think it's
Speaker 3: they've become meaningless terms. But like ISIS did commit horrendous
Speaker 3: acts of terror in Europe and the United States, and
Speaker 3: these people, a lot of them, I'm sure would happily
Speaker 3: do so given the opportunity. So I don't think that
Speaker 3: the threat is like sufficiently understood in the West.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, And like it's going to end up biting
Speaker 2: them in the ass because they've you know, they've put
Speaker 2: this off and put this off, and wouldn't spend the
Speaker 2: money to like have justice related to go through a
Speaker 2: system and to have a chance to plead their cases
Speaker 2: or have a tribune or whatever it is. Instead, these
Speaker 2: people have just been essentially abandoned by most of the world.
Speaker 2: The self administration has been forced to take care of
Speaker 2: the people who did horrific things right there. And yeah,
Speaker 2: at some point, this population will continue to grow if
Speaker 2: we don't keep removing people from it, and that's going
Speaker 2: to be a problem for the whole world, even if
Speaker 2: the whole world wants to pretend it's not happening right now.
Speaker 2: And it is just endlessly frustrating to see it not
Speaker 2: even be covered, let alone kind of addressed in the West.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a really important point when similar
Speaker 3: atrustees have been carried out in Europe. We see international tribunals,
Speaker 3: we see the ICC and the ICJ step in. We
Speaker 3: see arrests, we see prosecutions, you know, like Molossovich, like
Speaker 3: the newer Bent trials, and Isis was a massive state.
Speaker 3: It had some ten million inhabitants. It committed multiple genocides,
Speaker 3: you know, and this is just you know, people in
Speaker 3: the regions saying, oh, they're committing just these are like
Speaker 3: Western highly studied, highly understood, accepted by Western states as
Speaker 3: genocide against like the Uzds. They committed horrendous atrocities. They
Speaker 3: posed an international threat and a massive regional threat, and
Speaker 3: at the end of the caliphe as a territorial realm,
Speaker 3: as a serious military presence. It just, yeah, it just
Speaker 3: disappeared off the radar. And I think this is like
Speaker 3: a you know, a really is really shows the sort
Speaker 3: of racist and clonal mindset behind this rules based international
Speaker 3: order that the people who were their victims and who
Speaker 3: have left to pick up the pieces after it's got
Speaker 3: very little support or recognition. And they've been calling for
Speaker 3: for tribunals for years and it's just fallen on deaf ears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sadly idgy that changing given the incoming administration
Speaker 2: in the United States. Like it's it's deeply concerning, deeply concerned.
Speaker 2: Their own word, it's just fucked. I want to ask, like,
Speaker 2: people I think want to be in solidarity with the revolution,
Speaker 2: They want to help if they can, they want to support.
Speaker 2: I did the fundraiser last night. Thank you to everyone
Speaker 2: who gave their money and came. That was really nice.
Speaker 2: But what can people do to you know, it's one
Speaker 2: thing to like be in solidarity or post or whatever,
Speaker 2: but like, what concrete actions can they take to help.
Speaker 3: This is This is a question that I gets asked
Speaker 3: a lot. Yeah, I think and doing anything is helpful. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's also a question that's really hard to answer given
Speaker 3: how things are just across the border in Palestine. You know,
Speaker 3: I personally find it hard to to engage and ask
Speaker 3: for help and ask for solidarity when you know there's
Speaker 3: a there's a genocide being committed next door. But we
Speaker 3: might be about to see the same thing happened in Syria,
Speaker 3: and I do think we should be taking it seriously.
Speaker 3: And yeah, anything from raising awareness to actually going there
Speaker 3: and lending support, anything on that spectrum it's not just
Speaker 3: like it's not just the material contribution that you can make.
Speaker 3: It's the people that do really feel left doubt, they
Speaker 3: feel betrayed, they feel let down by the international community,
Speaker 3: by the rest of the world, and any act of
Speaker 3: solidarity goes out incredibly well. Like the first year I
Speaker 3: was there, I was basically useless because I didn't speak
Speaker 3: the language, I didn't know my way around. I was
Speaker 3: like a burden on society more or less. And for
Speaker 3: people just like happy that you're there, you know, showing solidarity.
Speaker 3: And it's not about being useful, it's about that act.
Speaker 3: It's about more than that. That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3: And if you can show solidarity in any way you can,
Speaker 3: like this is incredibly incredibly important to find to do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like I don't know, if I go
Speaker 2: back to when I move to the US, which was
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, George W. Bush as president, and
Speaker 2: like I have my little free Palestine badge when I
Speaker 2: got off the plane in my little kafir and like
Speaker 2: was immediately sent to secondary inspection by the customs people
Speaker 2: because like that was not really of course, there were
Speaker 2: Palestinian people and people in solidarity with the people of
Speaker 2: Palestine and the US in and they were for a
Speaker 2: long time before. But like I would never have imagined
Speaker 2: that I would see thousands of people in the streets
Speaker 2: for the Palestinian cause, and like that the only thing
Speaker 2: that has materially held back the genocide of the Palestinian
Speaker 2: people has been the solidarity that they've experienced, And like
Speaker 2: that shows the power that people have. Though obviously it's
Speaker 2: been able to do comparatively little in Israel still seems
Speaker 2: to be killing bill children every day, but like it
Speaker 2: shows that we can build solidarity really quickly and really meaningfully.
Speaker 2: And like you don't have to go, but you can go.
Speaker 4: You get.
Speaker 2: It's much harder to get to Palestine than it is
Speaker 2: to get to northern Newsyria. I went last year, And
Speaker 2: I think people who are already organizing can bring that
Speaker 2: into their organizing too. These things don't have to compete
Speaker 2: like they can be. There's a lot of solidarity to
Speaker 2: go around. But I would say a lot of the
Speaker 2: news we see, unfortunately from Turkey and that will unfortunately
Speaker 2: give you information that the extremely biased when it comes
Speaker 2: to Naughsi Siria. So being conscious of your media consumption
Speaker 2: is very important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I think I would just add that to
Speaker 3: say that solidarity with any group is a long term project, right,
Speaker 3: You're not going to jump in and be able to
Speaker 3: make a huge difference immediately. But also at the same time,
Speaker 3: like if the worst happens, if Turkey invades Ullon and
Speaker 3: as genocide and North Assyria, that isn't the end of it.
Speaker 3: It's a massive international movement and there are practices from
Speaker 3: it that are being put in place in things that
Speaker 3: actually don't even have anything to do with the curves
Speaker 3: of the nation. And there are always organizing, there are
Speaker 3: matters that they use as personality analysis, there's criticism and
Speaker 3: self criticism that there's a lot of that that goes
Speaker 3: far beyond a single geographic region, and I think engaging
Speaker 3: with that can and I've seen with my own I
Speaker 3: since I've been back, like there's a lot of groups
Speaker 3: around the UK that use techniques for self organization within
Speaker 3: land rights movement, within worker struggle, within ant Cutts campaigning,
Speaker 3: and the's got nothing to do with with Rajava, but
Speaker 3: they have seen that through solidarity with Rajava and Kurdistan
Speaker 3: that there are ways that can improve their own practice
Speaker 3: and their own actions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really important too, and those are
Speaker 2: things maybe we'll cover in the future. And there are
Speaker 2: plenty of good resources online. Are there any resources you'd
Speaker 2: like to plug or like personal social media's things? Do
Speaker 2: you think people could follow to get good information on
Speaker 2: what's happening.
Speaker 3: Definitely the ri C, that's the Java Information Center. They
Speaker 3: are probably the best source on the ground in Java,
Speaker 3: and they are a collective of journalists, a mixture of
Speaker 3: locals and internationalists who've been working there for six years now,
Speaker 3: so they're a rejar. But I see on various social
Speaker 3: media platforms you can follow me as at lapinesque la
Speaker 3: p I n E, s q u E. I'm also
Speaker 3: posting about it, although I'm not there anymore. I'm using
Speaker 3: updates from friends, people I know there and my take
Speaker 3: on the situation based on my experiences being there from
Speaker 3: five years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think good to follow if you can. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much, Danny. What we're going to do now
Speaker 2: is I got some voice notes from some friends who
Speaker 2: are at the front with a technosina and assist, which
Speaker 2: means anarchist struggle in Kurdish. They're a group within the
Speaker 2: SDF that is an anarchist group that they're fighting, and
Speaker 2: in this case as to doing frontline medical support on
Speaker 2: behalf of the self administration, on behalf of the revolution.
Speaker 2: They sent me some notes this morning, Monday today their
Speaker 2: positions on the front line. So obviously those notes will
Speaker 2: be a little bit they'll be like twenty four hours
Speaker 2: old by the time you hear them. But I still
Speaker 2: think it's very important to hear from people who are there.
Speaker 2: One we can not from, like someone who's supposed to be
Speaker 2: an expert but hasn't set for in Syria in fifteen
Speaker 2: years and hasn't really talked to anyone who's Syrian either.
Speaker 2: So we'll drop those in after the advertising break here,
Speaker 2: and with that I will say thank you very much, Danny,
Speaker 2: thanks for giving us your time, and he'll be really
Speaker 2: appreciate all you're insight today.
Speaker 5: Thanks very much, James, talking from the Provisional branch after divisions.
Speaker 6: We want to share the situation here.
Speaker 4: Because you're probably now the regime has fun. You've left
Speaker 4: the country after a big offensive that started from Italy
Speaker 4: that took over quite soon, quite fast, the city of
Speaker 4: Aliba and continued moving.
Speaker 6: We wanted to explain how is the situation right now
Speaker 6: on the ground and also give some insight on the.
Speaker 4: Situation of North in Syria and what the media is
Speaker 4: not covering of the different events and situations that are
Speaker 4: unknowing here. The main thing to remark that this can
Speaker 4: be a bit of a confusion confusion interview for those
Speaker 4: that are maybe not familiar with the unknowing situation. To
Speaker 4: give a short context, we can mention that there are
Speaker 4: right now two main conflicts ongoing military conflicts.
Speaker 6: One is when you reported they're not so much.
Speaker 4: We are talking about the war that HDRS or the
Speaker 4: offensive that HDS launched against the CERN or a part me.
Speaker 4: And the other is the offensive that the SMA and
Speaker 4: Turkish proxy forces the writin or the name of that
Speaker 4: Syrian National Army, but that they are trained, paid and
Speaker 4: supported by the Turkish state. The offensive they have been
Speaker 4: launching against Northern Asyria and the Democratic Administration of North
Speaker 4: Asyria is the area also known sometimes as Forgiver that
Speaker 4: is started as the.
Speaker 6: Court Desilberation movement leaving the world.
Speaker 4: Of Islamic state and establishing this autonomy's administration. So let's
Speaker 4: go shoot it to the first conflict. This offensive of
Speaker 4: its theater of the faith of Reaction, but it's Islamis
Speaker 4: group direct heritage of.
Speaker 6: An austral that was the Syrian.
Speaker 4: Branch of the GUIDO that has been governing having somewhat
Speaker 4: govern and the strict region in the Region of Europe
Speaker 4: in the north west of Syria and was under heavisage
Speaker 4: from the region. Process of Syria Army and the twenty
Speaker 4: seventh of Nanda Bay count is the offensive.
Speaker 6: That led to the collapse of the region.
Speaker 4: We could reflect about the regions now on one side,
Speaker 4: the Syria appeny was exhausted the two years of war
Speaker 4: here in Senia, but especially their main allies and supporters
Speaker 4: were also in that situation.
Speaker 6: We were talking mostly about Russia and Iran.
Speaker 4: As we currently know, Russia has been in change in
Speaker 4: a war in Ukraine for three years almost Iran recently
Speaker 4: had been also engaged in supporting the militias in the
Speaker 4: conflict against Israel after the virtual occupation that Israel started
Speaker 4: on another year ago. These two conflicts create a situation
Speaker 4: that both.
Speaker 6: Partners that Russian Iran were not able to support the
Speaker 6: army as they within the past.
Speaker 4: And this led also to the collapse of the front
Speaker 4: lands of the Serra Party, allowing the offensive of HDS
Speaker 4: to overrun very fast the defenses in the city of
Speaker 4: Alipo and also take in control of the city of Hamma.
Speaker 4: These sparked also all the groups that also opposed the
Speaker 4: region for a long time to start also the in
Speaker 4: action and in southern Syria and the regions of the
Speaker 4: Sula and and Couneta, there was also an autonomous military
Speaker 4: operation room that started coordinated insurgeons and the vision.
Speaker 6: These sparked the collapse of the region.
Speaker 4: A lot of soldiers were defect in their positions and
Speaker 4: finally the different military groups leaving the offensive.
Speaker 6: To the mass Post.
Speaker 4: This was an offensive that was really not very builded
Speaker 4: in the sense of a lot of the similar party
Speaker 4: souldiers who were.
Speaker 6: Just leaving their positions and running away.
Speaker 4: And offensive was able to do advance very fast, very easily.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 4: The offensive led to the transition that we are seeing
Speaker 4: in the mass Post, where the leader of HDS.
Speaker 6: Had been doing really.
Speaker 4: Public speeches and the carrying the trium of the revolution,
Speaker 4: trying to harvest.
Speaker 6: And the revolutionary spirit of the twenty eleven for their.
Speaker 4: Own benefit, and they imposed or composed a traditional government
Speaker 4: that is from exclusively by like members connected to aligned
Speaker 4: to HDS. Could be good to discuss more about HDS,
Speaker 4: but maybe it's not the focus of.
Speaker 6: Our interview right now. Just mentioned that the authoritarian.
Speaker 4: Government in Egypt has been also really criticized by local
Speaker 4: population organizing protest against it and right now running this
Speaker 4: interim government, they are already making proposals for like a
Speaker 4: morality police, is amy courts.
Speaker 6: So I don't know how much this comparison has been
Speaker 6: really shared. That clearly what we saw in Afhanistan with Taliban.
Speaker 4: Taking over the state destructors is probably a good guide
Speaker 4: to understand what could be happening in Syria if HBO
Speaker 4: states control of the the state as it's.
Speaker 6: To be happening.
Speaker 4: So this is one of the confident going that is
Speaker 4: widely reported. The only one maybe is not so much reported.
Speaker 4: We see how the Turkish has been for a long
Speaker 4: time to bested, has been for a long time and
Speaker 4: attacking the vision of that Norway Syria, especially the Cooltish areas, and.
Speaker 6: This is connected not to their war against the.
Speaker 4: Condliberation movement that has been known for more than forty
Speaker 4: years and the last chapter of US started in coordination
Speaker 4: with this offensive of Hds where the Appropi forces and
Speaker 4: started to attack, mainly the region of Takifact that was
Speaker 4: an area where a lot of the refugees from a
Speaker 4: friend were living. A frin was a region that was
Speaker 4: a ray occupied by thirty in twenty eighteen and a
Speaker 4: lot of the people from the city was displaced and
Speaker 4: living in refuge.
Speaker 6: Avants in the in the region of.
Speaker 4: Hinda and the civil Tetrifact, and these Turkish pecty forces
Speaker 4: attacked and conquered that vision, forcing all these people that
Speaker 4: already had to leave their homes more than five years
Speaker 4: ago two thousand eighteen. Yeah, so forcing them to flee
Speaker 4: once again. A lot of these people was trapped in
Speaker 4: a caroline that suffered brutal grades attacks, kidnapping, ransoms like
Speaker 4: it has been like a really terrible experience for a
Speaker 4: lot of people that was trying to flee the offensive
Speaker 4: of the Turkish practy forces. And most of them are
Speaker 4: now arriving to do bad. Time to write to the
Speaker 4: visions of the self administration when where they are founding
Speaker 4: and they can find shelter and for those willing to
Speaker 4: help with the mention that Hava Shirt is the humanitary
Speaker 4: organization one of the biggest humanitarior organizations working in other
Speaker 4: Syria and has been providing tans and fought and blankage
Speaker 4: and everything they can to support all these people that
Speaker 4: is arriving on these areas.
Speaker 6: So those willing to support.
Speaker 4: Economically and the humanical and crisis that we are experiencing,
Speaker 4: they can easily.
Speaker 6: Find the right side and the Banga Kama.
Speaker 4: Favasa to donate to them to support all these people
Speaker 4: that went again, those in their homes that the offensive
Speaker 4: didn't stop on An Shaffa and the SMA continued their
Speaker 4: attacks and took over the city of man Ma gerally
Speaker 4: right now and this was a really heavy classis that
Speaker 4: it was a really serious military conflict that has been
Speaker 4: totally supported by Turkish artillery.
Speaker 6: And air force. We are talking about.
Speaker 4: Drones sitting different positions and even airplanes.
Speaker 6: That of course nature air force have been.
Speaker 4: Bombing positions of the Cerum democratic forces, allowing.
Speaker 6: These different is on groups that part of.
Speaker 4: This coalition of the SMA, these poklish pactic forces to
Speaker 4: control of the city. At the moment, there is already
Speaker 4: several days that manage this city have been organizing protests
Speaker 4: and even in general strike that started yesterday and in
Speaker 4: the occupation because these groups that occupy the city are
Speaker 4: looting and even killing local populations in a really terrible situation.
Speaker 4: Of this experience in the local people living in Manage,
Speaker 4: and they are willing to continue. They have been threatening
Speaker 4: the city of Colony, the symbol of resists terms of
Speaker 4: the visual revolution against the designed state and the straits
Speaker 4: and the city are not just the bombings of the
Speaker 4: top air force and artillery, but also a lot of
Speaker 4: military personal of the Turkish Prepsy forces gathering on the
Speaker 4: bridge that connects the divisions.
Speaker 6: Of man Beach and Commanding and all across the air
Speaker 6: for this river.
Speaker 4: So this war is not so reported that it's been
Speaker 4: really both times against the self administration in Northeastyria. We
Speaker 4: are trying to report and update about the situation. We
Speaker 4: also published two studments to to call out attention for
Speaker 4: comrade what is ongoing here and maybe also.
Speaker 6: Talk a bit about the work that we have been
Speaker 6: doing on the ground.
Speaker 4: We need to remark that this offensive of the Mambage
Speaker 4: and now districts and Colony have not been the only adults.
Speaker 6: Of the Turkish army and the party forces and.
Speaker 4: The build all around the Street that they occupied in
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen and two thousand nineteen. In the areas around
Speaker 4: the city of Sylvania and Anisa next to the border
Speaker 4: with Tricky also host a lot of islam As groups
Speaker 4: that are part of this Turkish Party coalition and they
Speaker 4: have been intensively bounding the areas and their surroundings and
Speaker 4: there have been quiet widespread forms. This ze group togethering
Speaker 4: forces to continue their results on the self administration of
Speaker 4: Nordestria and the ward of the Syrian Democratic Forces. We
Speaker 4: from the Casinosis, we have been working in the medical capacity,
Speaker 4: provide i think materials for the medical points in the
Speaker 4: in the fundance and being present in the foundlands together
Speaker 4: with the Syrian Democratic Forces in case that a new
Speaker 4: invasion and is happening right now, the bombings are hitting.
Speaker 6: Different areas and it has been really intense in the
Speaker 6: last days.
Speaker 4: The Syrian Democratic Forces are in maximilar and especially there
Speaker 4: is an important call in solidarity with the city of Covany,
Speaker 4: a symbol of resistance that is small ones again under threat.
Speaker 4: We have been seen as demonstrations are around the world
Speaker 4: in solebarity with like the revolutions here and this has
Speaker 4: been also bringing lots motivation to continue the resistance underground.
Speaker 4: Right now, these situations of the instability and political tradition
Speaker 4: is still plain in ways that are difficult to predict.
Speaker 6: We can see how the self administration has been sending political.
Speaker 4: Realizations and to the masters to never shad with this
Speaker 4: new provisional government with the attempt to reach autonomy for
Speaker 4: the region that connects with the ideas of democratic conferenism,
Speaker 4: the DEAs of democratic confulism. Don't expect to run a
Speaker 4: state institutions.
Speaker 6: Because we don't want to live.
Speaker 4: In a society that is ruled by a state, and
Speaker 4: are calling for tums economy in a lot of governments
Speaker 4: where that the different communities can live together, colleges together,
Speaker 4: administering their social forms together, and also with their defense.
Speaker 4: We'll see how the democratic forces is at a military
Speaker 4: coalition of different local military forces that it's blade on
Speaker 4: the principles of self defense. Maybe to give a bit
Speaker 4: of context also of what we have been doing here
Speaker 4: for several years that our organization has been operating in
Speaker 4: another Syria.
Speaker 6: As anarchists. We can hear in.
Speaker 4: Solidarity international society with this revolution because their political values.
Speaker 6: And their political project is really close to our ideas.
Speaker 4: We see big similarities with the ideas of libertarian socialism
Speaker 4: and social ecology and thinkers and model Bootin have been
Speaker 4: a big inspiration for unvers In, leader of the Court
Speaker 4: Desirition movement that has been proposing this political friend called
Speaker 4: democratic confromism, where especially with the principles of one liberation,
Speaker 4: social ecology and studios andocracy has been political campus of
Speaker 4: the revolution here.
Speaker 6: Building autonomy in the.
Speaker 4: Different regions has been also a very important element to
Speaker 4: develop the project, and especially during the war and the
Speaker 4: Islamic State, as soon as the different territories were liberated,
Speaker 4: there was a big emphasis on creating local councils civilian
Speaker 4: and military councils both that.
Speaker 6: Around their own affairs.
Speaker 4: This is very interesting from anarchists perspective not to see
Speaker 4: how one of the main political points is these promotings
Speaker 4: of defense and creating a military force that is not
Speaker 4: based on a centralized monopoly of balance, but on allowing
Speaker 4: every community to take care of their own defense and
Speaker 4: their own affairs.
Speaker 6: This is a really inspiring.
Speaker 4: Element that for us as I mean also a really
Speaker 4: extraordinary learning process.
Speaker 6: Being part of a revolution.
Speaker 4: Leaving day to day the developments that are happening here
Speaker 4: and seeing what doesn't mean to make a revolution because
Speaker 4: in something that sometimes we anarchists look back often in
Speaker 4: at the epic times of like Spain on thirty six
Speaker 4: Ukraine in the twenties to see examples of like an
Speaker 4: anarchist revolution.
Speaker 6: And this is something that today is happening here.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 6: This tant has been for a long time leaving a
Speaker 6: resistance against.
Speaker 4: The logic of national states, especially in turky but we
Speaker 4: saw how it has been funding in Syria where like
Speaker 4: this movement found the space to put in practice these
Speaker 4: ideas and to develop the revolutionary society that has been
Speaker 4: theorized for a long time. So even if we cannot
Speaker 4: save Vergialism an anarchist region can say how at his
Speaker 4: principles inspired the project and that it's been developed here
Speaker 4: and implemented. This is a really an important school. It
Speaker 4: brings a lot of lections of the big challenges of
Speaker 4: reorganizing a society with principles of libertarian socialism. It is
Speaker 4: especially complicated here because of external reasons like the situation
Speaker 4: of the Marble, the constant threat of the Tutis army,
Speaker 4: and this is something that for sure we can point
Speaker 4: out as like, well, it's very difficult to make a
Speaker 4: revolution with these factors. But this is also a lesson
Speaker 4: that making a revolution will always be.
Speaker 6: Difficult, and we always have really big.
Speaker 4: Factors that make the situation very difficult. If making a
Speaker 4: revolution would be easy, we would already have done it.
Speaker 4: So of course it's something that brings a lot of difficulties,
Speaker 4: a lot of compleation, and a lot of challenges and
Speaker 4: use here day to day living what it means to
Speaker 4: build their evolutionary society, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 4: equations from the reflections that we also able to translate
Speaker 4: and to reflect together with.
Speaker 6: The artist movements from around the world, to learn family.
Speaker 7: Experience, and to be able to analyze together and reflect
Speaker 7: and discuss together of what it means to build anarchism
Speaker 7: in the twenty first century, what it means to build
Speaker 7: libertarian socialism nowadays.
Speaker 6: In the current society with all the different elements that
Speaker 6: we see, and of course in.
Speaker 4: The military council division going, it can seem maybe sometimes
Speaker 4: far away of community in western countries, but I think
Speaker 4: it's important to remember that revolution and war have been
Speaker 4: always to site. At the same time, it's in these
Speaker 4: mode of instability of war where the logic and the
Speaker 4: established school of national states is more weak, because we
Speaker 4: can actually see.
Speaker 6: Nine other times in another moment or.
Speaker 4: Even in other places nowadays, what is happening for example,
Speaker 4: and there now what is happening in the different areas
Speaker 4: where the logic of a national state has been questioned,
Speaker 4: creates in the stability to create a situation where the
Speaker 4: different actors will push to take control.
Speaker 6: And we know that often those actors will be met by.
Speaker 4: A nationalism and forces mentality with an authoritarian logic to
Speaker 4: just impose their ideas and their aims by force. And
Speaker 4: it's very important that we think and we reflect and
Speaker 4: reorganize force that is able to react to that situation
Speaker 4: because a traitarian and hierarchic miter structures.
Speaker 6: Are quite false.
Speaker 4: To react, we as anarchists, we need time to organize
Speaker 4: arizon pay because our structures.
Speaker 6: Function based us on trust also make knowing each other
Speaker 6: and even if I really believe that they are much
Speaker 6: more solid and much more.
Speaker 4: Reliable in a long term, in a short term we
Speaker 4: can face.
Speaker 6: Big, big challenge. So it's important.
Speaker 4: To see fascism is as with advancing all around the world,
Speaker 4: and we can see how the intentions are growing.
Speaker 6: So maybe this isn't.
Speaker 4: As a call min to learn from the lessons here,
Speaker 4: to learn from how the Kurdish movement have been working
Speaker 4: and preparing for decades and what happened in Syria made
Speaker 4: possible for the revolutionary movement to put the cards on
Speaker 4: the table, to organize together with the people and to
Speaker 4: defend their people and their communities, building these rebuffering process
Speaker 4: that nowadays that so many people have been like taking
Speaker 4: inspiration from.
Speaker 6: So yeah, probably this is a bit confusing and maybe
Speaker 6: not so clearent.
Speaker 4: Sorry, we have been quiet some hours. We've had several
Speaker 4: weeks that have been extremely challenging with really few hours
Speaker 4: of sleep. But I hope this is more or less clear,
Speaker 4: and this is doing is something that it's not so
Speaker 4: understandable and always welcome new and new questions and helping answer,
Speaker 4: answer and share more perspective.
Speaker 6: We have been answer writing some statements and we are
Speaker 6: answer trying to answer all.
Speaker 4: Those people interested in learning more about the situation here
Speaker 4: and in ways to support the revenue.
Speaker 1: It could happen. Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 6: Thanks for listening,