Speaker 1: Welcome to the Women's War, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: It's weird to wake up in the morning and read
Speaker 1: about a dictatorial warlord's promise to murder all the people
Speaker 1: you're planning to hang out with that day. I can
Speaker 1: safely call it a unique experience. We'd ended our night
Speaker 1: in Kobani with a huge dinner at a local restaurant
Speaker 1: located right next to a soccer field. Young men and
Speaker 1: women had played while we all enjoyed cold beer and
Speaker 1: hot food. Kabat even had a drink. I had several.
Speaker 1: I'd digg in a couple home to have before bed,
Speaker 1: and while I walked around the hotel grounds, I got
Speaker 1: a feel for Cabani at night. It was a pleasant evening,
Speaker 1: and a need to pee woke me up unusually early
Speaker 1: the next morning. Once I got back from the restroom,
Speaker 1: I made the profound error of unlocking my phone and
Speaker 1: checking the news. Sweet Lady Internet informed me that Turkish
Speaker 1: President Edwin had made a whole new spade of threats
Speaker 1: against Java in the Syrian Democratic four Is. The United
Speaker 1: States was still ostensibly trying to mediate in the dispute
Speaker 1: between their largely Kurdish allies and the Turkish government, but
Speaker 1: everyone in the region knew the United States planned to leave,
Speaker 1: which made their actual negotiating position with Turkey practically nil.
Speaker 1: The cities we've been traveling through bright, defiant, Kovanni, peaceful, Derik, chaotic, kamishlo.
Speaker 1: Ridawin called them all a terror corridor. In meetings with
Speaker 1: his own party, he promised to shatter this corridor no
Speaker 1: matter how the negotiations with the US to establish a
Speaker 1: safe zone along the Syrian borders concludes. His reasons for
Speaker 1: this go back decades, and they're tied up heavily in
Speaker 1: the deeply complicated history of Turkish domination over the Anatolian Peninsula.
Speaker 1: But the most recent justification for violence was, in fairness,
Speaker 1: pretty straightforward. P KK militants in Iraq had absolutely assassinated
Speaker 1: a Turkish diplomat just the day before Jake and I
Speaker 1: had landed in her bill erda Win's contention was that
Speaker 1: all of Rojava was nothing but one big, giant safe
Speaker 1: space for a terrorist group to operate. In the debate
Speaker 1: over the peakk's role in Rojava is yet another super
Speaker 1: fucking complicated issue. The people who actually live here talk
Speaker 1: readily about who is from the mountains in the p
Speaker 1: k K and who is not. We'd actually talked about
Speaker 1: this a bit the day before with Kobad. She'd acknowledged
Speaker 1: that these old fighters were often more experienced organizers than
Speaker 1: local Syrian Kurds, more professional or more experience the local
Speaker 1: or sometimes you find this mamas there are also super professional.
Speaker 1: So one of then demandin she organized all that moment,
Speaker 1: that mama that you met, and now she moved, and
Speaker 1: now that our organizatives them. So it's good that beginning.
Speaker 1: It would be rank idiocy to deny the influence the
Speaker 1: PEKK wields in Rojava, but it would be just as
Speaker 1: foolish to act as if everything that happens here is
Speaker 1: part of some gigantic terrorist conspiracy to destroy Turkish sovereignty.
Speaker 1: The mamas are not militants, have all Salaman Ahim, who
Speaker 1: we met at the farm, did not have secret designs
Speaker 1: to assault Turkish military basis. Jin War was not a
Speaker 1: cover for any sort of militant action. There are very
Speaker 1: few simple truths in this place, but as best as
Speaker 1: I can ascertain, two things are true. Number One, the
Speaker 1: Kurdistan Workers Party or p KK has been responsible for
Speaker 1: horrificed acts of violence in the past and is still
Speaker 1: responsible for violence in the present day. And Number two,
Speaker 1: the p KK also saved tens of thousands of Yazdi
Speaker 1: lives during the early days of the war against ISIS.
Speaker 1: The early YEPG was heavily dominated by p KK fighters,
Speaker 1: and the men and women who invaded Iraq to stop
Speaker 1: ISIS from massacring the z Ds were basically all p KK.
Speaker 1: If you don't know this history, it's easy to look
Speaker 1: at the p kk's assassination of a Turkish diplomat and
Speaker 1: write them off is just another extremist group, But you
Speaker 1: really can't. Averting a genocide may not wipe the slate clean,
Speaker 1: but it damn share earns something in my book. And
Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that outraged as Turkey was over
Speaker 1: the attack her bill, the Turkish government gives zero fox
Speaker 1: about violating another nation's sovereignty to murder a political enemy.
Speaker 1: Sacchina Johnsys was one of the founding members of the
Speaker 1: p k K, right alongside Abdulaglon. She wasn't faster lucky
Speaker 1: enough to escape to Syria when the government cracked down
Speaker 1: on them, and in September of nineteen eighties, she wound
Speaker 1: up imprisoned in the Arbuqure. Some thirty four of her
Speaker 1: fellow inmates were tortured to death during the years she
Speaker 1: was locked up. Seeing her friends get tortured to death
Speaker 1: was a profoundly radicalizing experience for Sechina and for many
Speaker 1: of her comrades. This helped push the PKK to acts
Speaker 1: of more extreme violence in the nineteen eighties. While she
Speaker 1: was locked up, Johnson's led a series of inmate protests
Speaker 1: inside the prison. Her composure and toughness made her a
Speaker 1: natural rallying point for the imprisoned insurgents, and by the
Speaker 1: time she was released, Sechina Johnson's was seen as a
Speaker 1: legend within the p KK. She escaped to Syria after
Speaker 1: being freed, received armed training, and became one of the
Speaker 1: movement's first female fighters. So Quena's first combat experience was
Speaker 1: against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Army, who were then in the
Speaker 1: process of committing genocide via chemical weapons. She was good
Speaker 1: at fighting, and she pushed hard for more women to
Speaker 1: join the p KK as fighters. Since Johnson's was close
Speaker 1: to Abdulagelon, she was able to play a major role
Speaker 1: in getting the guerilla leader to embrace the concept of
Speaker 1: armed all women units. By nineteen nine three, one third
Speaker 1: of the p KKs fighters were female. It's probably fair
Speaker 1: to say that Secchina Johnsons was as much a founder
Speaker 1: of the Rojavan Revolution as Abdulla Ajolan. Her decades of
Speaker 1: advocacy and personal lobbying certainly had a profound impact on
Speaker 1: APO and his eventual conversion into an obsessive advocate for
Speaker 1: gender equality. In nineteen under interrogation after his arrest, Apo
Speaker 1: said this, I started the women's movement to free women
Speaker 1: from the feudalism of men and to create a strong
Speaker 1: type of women. I wanted lively discussions in relation to that.
Speaker 1: I do remember the name of Sacchina john Says. For
Speaker 1: her part, Secchina wound up dispatched to Europe to work
Speaker 1: on the political side of the p k k's operations,
Speaker 1: lobbying the European Union for Curtish sovereignty. She spent nearly
Speaker 1: twenty years in France and was a prominent face for
Speaker 1: the movement until January ninth, two thousand thirteen, when she
Speaker 1: and two other Kurdish activists were gunned down by a
Speaker 1: Turkish maintenance worker with strong ties to Turkey's equivalent of
Speaker 1: the c i A. All of this was on my
Speaker 1: mind in the morning of July twenty five, as I
Speaker 1: tore myself away from my smartphone, showered, and stumbled out
Speaker 1: into the breaking dawn with a goal of finding a
Speaker 1: cup of coffee. Instead, I found Kabat sitting out in
Speaker 1: front of the hotel and smoking a cigarette with an
Speaker 1: old man who identified himself as Papa Curdie. He invited
Speaker 1: me to sit, smoke and talk, and so we did.
Speaker 1: We talked a bit about the fighting against ISIS and
Speaker 1: the coming war against Turkey until Jake and Alan got
Speaker 1: up to join us. Then we all piled into the
Speaker 1: car and headed off. We rolled through downtown Kobani in
Speaker 1: our way out of town, and it gave me my
Speaker 1: first real look at the center of the city. Everything
Speaker 1: is very clean, very new. We approach a traffic circle
Speaker 1: in the exact middle of the city and my eyes
Speaker 1: are drawn to what is easily the largeest television screen
Speaker 1: I saw in Rojava. It's mounted to a monument in
Speaker 1: the circle, and it displays a twenty four seven feet
Speaker 1: of drone footage of the city right after the Battle
Speaker 1: of Kobani ended. The footage shows us the same traffic
Speaker 1: circle as it was just a few years earlier, lasted
Speaker 1: and ruined. Our first stop today is a press office
Speaker 1: for the SDF located just outside of Kobani. We need
Speaker 1: to secure permission to visit a nearby base for the
Speaker 1: YEPJ Rojava is all female militia. This particular base as
Speaker 1: the first all Arab training center for the wye PJ,
Speaker 1: which up until the last year or so had been
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly Kurdish dominated. No journalists had ever been allowed inside
Speaker 1: this training center before. As a lawn barrels down the
Speaker 1: highway this morning, We've already been turned down more than once,
Speaker 1: but Kabat is absolutely committed to turning this no into
Speaker 1: a yes. So we park outside, walk in, and start
Speaker 1: what became a three hour back and forth between Kabat
Speaker 1: and a rotating series of SDF officials people on the academy.
Speaker 1: So we're going to discussed with them or we're gonna
Speaker 1: see how if they said no media have been in
Speaker 1: the academy never, So this is the new we're at
Speaker 1: So well, Jake and I sipped coffee and smoked a
Speaker 1: lawns hard cigarettes about worked. It was a long, grinding
Speaker 1: and interminable process, but these kind of days are also
Speaker 1: an unavoidable reality of conflict journalism. As with soldiers, much
Speaker 1: of a journalist time in these places has spent hurrying
Speaker 1: up for the opportunity to wait. By the third hour,
Speaker 1: Jake and I start to suspect that this whole thing
Speaker 1: might not actually work out. Kobat received no afterno from
Speaker 1: different officials the whole morning. She darted from person to person,
Speaker 1: one hand always on her phone as she gently applied
Speaker 1: each of her contacts within the SDF. It was a
Speaker 1: painfully slow process, but she did eventually get our yes.
Speaker 1: We piled immediately into a LANs van, terrified that someone
Speaker 1: might change their mind if we were to linger too long.
Speaker 1: Once we actually got on the road, we shared a
Speaker 1: moment of gleeful celebration, made all the sweeter by the
Speaker 1: agony of the weight. Alon produced a pair of cigarettes
Speaker 1: for Jake and I spas bash. He grunted at us
Speaker 1: with a wiggly smile. Then he turned his eyes back
Speaker 1: to the road and put pedal to the metal. We'd
Speaker 1: already burned through a lot of the day getting the yes.
Speaker 1: Now it was time to make it count. The White
Speaker 1: p J Bass is a massive compound in the desert,
Speaker 1: surrounded by low, cream colored walls and the yellow rolling
Speaker 1: plains of northeast Syria. There is fire in the air
Speaker 1: and dust all around us as we drive up to
Speaker 1: the entrance, which is lined with dozens of flags and
Speaker 1: icons from all the different units in the SDF. Behind
Speaker 1: these flags are rows of baby trees, saplings clearly planted
Speaker 1: recently when the space was constructed. It's anyone's guess where
Speaker 1: Rojava will be by the time they grow to adulthood.
Speaker 1: We passed through a gatehouse, and then a lawn grumbles
Speaker 1: his van to a slow stop in the middle of
Speaker 1: a complex of large, low buildings that looked like the
Speaker 1: scilities for a rather humble state university. We see a
Speaker 1: few young women sitting out around the steps of a
Speaker 1: nearby building, huddled around a couple of books and studying.
Speaker 1: If they weren't all wearing military fatigues, this might look
Speaker 1: like some progressive women's college in the desert. That impression
Speaker 1: fades when we meet our host, Neuras Rocca, the commander
Speaker 1: of this training facility. Like most of the women will
Speaker 1: meet today, she has adopted a nom de geer. The
Speaker 1: standard is to take the name of the city of
Speaker 1: your birth. In her case, Rocca. She looks to be
Speaker 1: in her mid twenties, although her face seems much older.
Speaker 1: She keeps her jaw clinched tight, and my lasting impression
Speaker 1: of her face is all stern lines and sharp angles
Speaker 1: have all. Rocca presents a powerful air of severity to
Speaker 1: the world. This is reinforced by the patch on her shoulder,
Speaker 1: which bears a picture of Abdula Agelan in the words
Speaker 1: no life without our leader. For all that though, she
Speaker 1: is quiet and polite as she welcomes us into this
Speaker 1: training facility, which is also her home. We carry our
Speaker 1: gear into a large meeting room in the compound's main building.
Speaker 1: The meeting room is rectangular, about the size of a
Speaker 1: large trailer. The walls are all lined with ground level couches,
Speaker 1: essentially just a network of thick cushions that provide comfy,
Speaker 1: low slung seating around the walls of the facility. There
Speaker 1: is no APO picture on the wall, but there is
Speaker 1: a flat screen TV which is playing coverage from one
Speaker 1: of Rojava's local TV news networks. The day's big stories
Speaker 1: about the peace talks between Turkey, the US and Rojava's
Speaker 1: self administration. We settle in, exchange some pleasantries, and then
Speaker 1: Hubat and I slipped rather casually into an interview with
Speaker 1: haval Roca. She refers to this training facility as an academy,
Speaker 1: and through Hubbat tells us why it was opened in
Speaker 1: the first place. While they opened this academy because there
Speaker 1: was a necessity for the Arab sect in order don't
Speaker 1: understand the corn land which they opened it. This academy
Speaker 1: in Arabic. The whole training courses two months and a
Speaker 1: full month of it is ideological training, starting with a
Speaker 1: class in the history of Syria and then an introduction
Speaker 1: to the accuracy with women's rights as the core of
Speaker 1: that philosophy. Core education, which is the feminist movements and
Speaker 1: specifically the characters who are filmous like and the other
Speaker 1: women who are the statute they make a stand in
Speaker 1: the revolution history struggling women. This education into the history
Speaker 1: of feminist movements eventually dovetails into a history of the YPJ.
Speaker 1: The goal is for women here to feel as if
Speaker 1: they are part of a struggle that's bigger than Syria
Speaker 1: and older than just the ideals of Rojava. So they
Speaker 1: are giving share, including this whole movement in around the
Speaker 1: world globally. What who are those women, why they are fighting,
Speaker 1: who they were fighting, why this revolution take a place?
Speaker 1: So all this they are explaining during this feminist movement.
Speaker 1: A Roca explains that her goal is not just to
Speaker 1: train these women to fight, but to train them to
Speaker 1: be leaders in their community. They are preparing those people
Speaker 1: who are leading in as as a leaders, as as
Speaker 1: you know, commanders, to lead the community, the society to
Speaker 1: be knowing their surface. This is what they are trying
Speaker 1: to building here. And uh yeah, they are seeing people
Speaker 1: from different parts of Syrium. Even last time, there was
Speaker 1: a last before they graduated the last group, there was
Speaker 1: a Turkmen in this group, and untually anyone speaking promotes
Speaker 1: stupid's history. The Rojavan movement has been heavily Kurdish dominated.
Speaker 1: Critics of Rojava regularly make the case that it is
Speaker 1: really a Kurdish supremacist movement, but Arabs, Armenians, Turkmen, and
Speaker 1: members of other ethnic groups make up an increasingly large
Speaker 1: percentage of the soldiers in the SDF. So they are
Speaker 1: teaching them about the democratic nation because for them, the
Speaker 1: core of democratic nation philosophy is the woman free woment,
Speaker 1: so without the filment that no one will could be
Speaker 1: able to implement. Up to this point, what she's saying
Speaker 1: is what we've heard before, but it quickly becomes clear
Speaker 1: that she's actually trying to make a more nuanced point
Speaker 1: this project and who are going to implement this projected
Speaker 1: those people who are teaching them about the democratic nation,
Speaker 1: because that was probably unclear to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: What have all Rockett was saying through Hubbad is that
Speaker 1: in addition to fighting, the women who train here are
Speaker 1: expected to go back to their communities and helps spread
Speaker 1: democratic values among them. This is the long game for Rojava,
Speaker 1: and it's the only real long game that the Kurdish
Speaker 1: founders of this movement could hope to have. The STF
Speaker 1: has made education and history, politics and ethics as much
Speaker 1: of a priority as armed training because they consider spreading
Speaker 1: this education to be something that contributes to their immediate
Speaker 1: physical security. It's a democratic nation. On all the other
Speaker 1: wars here it's a sectarian war, so they're one of
Speaker 1: democratic nation, which is diversity and include all the nationalists.
Speaker 1: We in the United States are currently receiving a crash
Speaker 1: course on what happens when a society loses any kind
Speaker 1: of shared conception of history and ethics. At its very worst,
Speaker 1: the sort of collapse and shared understanding can lead to
Speaker 1: civil wars and ethnic cleansing. Kurds in this part of
Speaker 1: Syria are no stranger to ethnic cleansing. They have been
Speaker 1: victims and also perpetrators. Kurdish fighters were active participants in
Speaker 1: the Armenian genocide of nineteen fifteen to nineteen seventeen. The
Speaker 1: Armenian genocide is too complex a topic to cover in
Speaker 1: detail now, but it's worth noting that Key denies it
Speaker 1: ever happened. Overwhelming evidence proved that somewhere between one and
Speaker 1: two million people were killed on the orders of the
Speaker 1: Ottoman Turkish government. Many nations around the world have officially
Speaker 1: recognized the Armenian genocide. The United States is not one
Speaker 1: of them. Before he took office, Barack Obama promised to
Speaker 1: change this fact. He did not keep that promise. Top
Speaker 1: Obama advisers Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power have recently acknowledged
Speaker 1: that they view this as a mistake. Rhodes explained to
Speaker 1: Politico every year there was a reason not to. Turkey
Speaker 1: was vital to some issue that we were dealing with,
Speaker 1: or there was some dialogue between Turkey and the Armenian
Speaker 1: government about the past. The main reason Turkey was too
Speaker 1: vital to offend is the massive air base the United
Speaker 1: States maintains in the Turkish city of Inserlik. The fact
Speaker 1: that this air base includes fifty nuclear warheads complicates matters further,
Speaker 1: but the issue of the Armenian genocide is not complicated
Speaker 1: in Rojava. Abdulla Augelon began writing about the need for
Speaker 1: Kurds to atone for their role in the Armenian genocide
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen eighties. In two thousand nineteen, on
Speaker 1: the International Day of Armenian Genocide Commemoration, the SDF announced
Speaker 1: the creation of its first all Armenian military brigade. The
Speaker 1: men and women of the YPG and YPJ learn about
Speaker 1: the Armenian genocide is part of their training, one way
Speaker 1: or the other. The goal of all this is to
Speaker 1: promote self defense. One of the basic listens that's we
Speaker 1: are giving it's uh self defense, self defense culture. We
Speaker 1: wanted to build in this character of those fighter that
Speaker 1: self defense it's a you're right, it's a legal right
Speaker 1: for any human beings to have it. Unfortunately, in this
Speaker 1: region there have been a lot of different armored actors
Speaker 1: and they have been different behaves against the other, different humans.
Speaker 1: When we wanted to build them just self defense way
Speaker 1: that we don't want any as a literary forces, you
Speaker 1: know it to control them, to control their character that's
Speaker 1: not occurring ground or whatever. So yeah, we want to
Speaker 1: because we want to implement the line the philosophy lines
Speaker 1: of Agel and that's it's about the freedom of the woman,
Speaker 1: and we wanted the self defense with the freedom and
Speaker 1: in the character presentive of the crew kind of the
Speaker 1: treat of the woman to be a It's not lost
Speaker 1: on me that one group's ideological education as another group's brainwashing.
Speaker 1: The Turkish government's contention would certainly be that the girls
Speaker 1: and women of the space are all being brainwashed to
Speaker 1: serve a terrorist group no better than al Qaeda or ISIS.
Speaker 1: Fortunately this was an area in which I was able
Speaker 1: to do some more investigation. I could see that haval
Speaker 1: Rocca had a notebook full of instructional materials for the
Speaker 1: day's courses. I asked if we could see it. She
Speaker 1: handed the notebook over and let me take photos of
Speaker 1: the training material. I did not have time to gather
Speaker 1: a comprehensive collection of every lesson, but I walked away
Speaker 1: with the class syllabus in the full text of a
Speaker 1: one course unit. The syllabus was for the first thirty
Speaker 1: days of the two month training, and it lined up
Speaker 1: with what haveval Roca had claimed during our interview. The
Speaker 1: first few days focused on rules for behavior and procedures
Speaker 1: in the YPJ and STF Basic Order and Military Discipline.
Speaker 1: Day six starts with courses on criticism and self criticism,
Speaker 1: the tech mill system. We talked about earlier and ysical
Speaker 1: and moral values. Much of the course centers around reading
Speaker 1: the works of Adlaglan. His booklet The Democratic Nation is
Speaker 1: studied on day fourteen, Liberating Life, another booklet is on
Speaker 1: day sixteen, Women in the Family, and on day eighteen.
Speaker 1: All of these books are available in full for free
Speaker 1: on the website Aujalon Books dot com O C A
Speaker 1: L A N B O O K S dot com.
Speaker 1: You can read them yourself if you want a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of the course material. For our purposes in this podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to read some selections I found interesting
Speaker 1: from Liberating Life, The History of the Loss of freedom
Speaker 1: is at the same time the history of how woman
Speaker 1: lost her position and vanished from history. It is the
Speaker 1: history of how the dominant male, with all his gods
Speaker 1: and servants, rulers and subordinates, his economy, science, and arts,
Speaker 1: obtained power. Woman's downfallen loss is thus the downfallen loss
Speaker 1: of the whole of society, with the resultants sexist society.
Speaker 1: The sexist male is so keen on constructing his social
Speaker 1: dominance over women that he turns any contact with her
Speaker 1: into a show of dominance. The depth of a woman's
Speaker 1: enslavement and the intentional masking of this fact is thus
Speaker 1: closely linked to the rise within a society of hierarchical
Speaker 1: and statist power. As women are habituated to slavery, hierarchies
Speaker 1: from the Greek word hierarchy, a ruled by the high priest,
Speaker 1: are established, the path to the enslavement of the other
Speaker 1: sections of society is paved. The enslavement of men comes
Speaker 1: after the enslavement of women, and another quote housewife iszation
Speaker 1: is the oldest form of slavery. The strong man and
Speaker 1: his entourage defeated the mother woman in all aspects of
Speaker 1: her cult through long and comprehensive struggles. Housewife iszation became
Speaker 1: institutionalized when the sexist society became dominant. Originally, the term
Speaker 1: hierarchy referred to the government by the priests the authority
Speaker 1: of the wise elders. Initially it had a positive function.
Speaker 1: We may perhaps even view the beneficial hierarchy in a
Speaker 1: natural society as the prototype of democracy. The mother woman
Speaker 1: and the wise elders ensured communal security and the governance
Speaker 1: of the society. They are necessary and useful fundamental elements
Speaker 1: in a society that was not based on accumulation and ownership.
Speaker 1: Society voluntarily awarded them respect. But when voluntary dependence is
Speaker 1: transformed into authority, usefulness, and a self interest, it always
Speaker 1: gives way to an uncalled for instrument of force. The
Speaker 1: instrument of force disguises itself behind common security and collective production.
Speaker 1: This constitutes the core of all exploitative and oppressive systems.
Speaker 1: It is the most sinister creation ever invented, The creation
Speaker 1: that brought forth all forms of slavery, all forms of
Speaker 1: mythology and religion, all systematic annihilation and plunder, the emotional
Speaker 1: intelligence of woman that created wonders, that was humane and
Speaker 1: committed to nature, and life was lost. In its place
Speaker 1: has been born the cursed analytical intelligence of a cruel
Speaker 1: culture that has surrendered itself to dogmatism and attached itself
Speaker 1: from nature, that considers war to be the most exalted virtue,
Speaker 1: and enjoys the shedding of human blood, that sees his
Speaker 1: arbitrary treatment of women and his enslavement of man as
Speaker 1: its right. I into remind everyone again that these words
Speaker 1: I just read are part of the mandatory training program
Speaker 1: for a militia in the Syrian desert. I'll read one
Speaker 1: more quote before we move on. The male has become
Speaker 1: a state and turned this into the dominant culture. Class
Speaker 1: and sexual aggression developed together. Masculinity has generated ruling gender,
Speaker 1: ruling class, and ruling state. When man is analyzed in
Speaker 1: this context, it is clear that masculinity must be killed. Indeed,
Speaker 1: to kill the dominant man is the fundamental principle of socialism.
Speaker 1: This is what killing power means, to kill the one
Speaker 1: sided domination, the inequality and intolerance. Moreover, it is to
Speaker 1: kill fascism, dictatorship, and despotism. After concluding our interview with
Speaker 1: Havalaka and taking photos of the course materials, we break
Speaker 1: for coffee into smoke. While we're resting, a young woman
Speaker 1: wearing fatigues, a bright flower Kafia and Hello Kitty Socks
Speaker 1: gently steps into the room. She looks to be in
Speaker 1: her mid twenties, with straight black hair, a handsome angular face,
Speaker 1: and large, intelligent brown eyes. She introduces herself as a friend, Missie.
Speaker 1: She tells us that she is the Wye pj's media
Speaker 1: representative at this base. Shortly after arriving, we told have
Speaker 1: All Rocca that we wanted to interview some of the
Speaker 1: soldiers here about their lives. Have Alla Freene tells us
Speaker 1: that her job is to sit in during the interview
Speaker 1: and make sure we're respectful of her soldiers. Many of
Speaker 1: these women are just seventeen or eighteen years old, and
Speaker 1: a number of them have traumatic histories that lead them here.
Speaker 1: She wants to make sure we don't press our subjects
Speaker 1: to talk about things they aren't comfortable sharing. This concerns
Speaker 1: me a bit. The request is not inherently unreasonable, but
Speaker 1: it's only proper journalistic skepticism to worry that a media
Speaker 1: representative sitting in on an interview might be there to
Speaker 1: control or restrict the answers given. By a subject. I
Speaker 1: decided to keep an eye on Havla Freen during the interview.
Speaker 1: We step away and set up for our first interview
Speaker 1: in a small side room. All of the women we
Speaker 1: talk to today A volunteered to speak. The first is
Speaker 1: of All Kurdistan, a square jawed woman with coke bottle
Speaker 1: glasses who gives me very strong librarian pipes. Kurdistan Barran.
Speaker 1: She's from original She came for ideological training. She is
Speaker 1: a member of the The MMS or Manbij Military Council
Speaker 1: is one of the many militias that works under the
Speaker 1: broad umbrella of the SDF. Have All Kurdistan joined back
Speaker 1: in two thousands sixteen, and during that bloody period of
Speaker 1: the war, there was not much time for ideological training.
Speaker 1: Now that things have calmed down, the SDF center here
Speaker 1: to finish learning. She reached adulthood in one of the
Speaker 1: most traumatic and trying circumstances imaginable of all Kurdistan's adolescence
Speaker 1: coincided disastrously with the meteoric rise and expansion of the
Speaker 1: Islamic State. The soldiers of the Caliphate conquered her home
Speaker 1: and she was forced to live under their brutal rule
Speaker 1: for years of her life. Did she suffered during ISIS
Speaker 1: when it was controlling the Remember what happened? She was
Speaker 1: once in the market and she has to argue with
Speaker 1: the one of the ISIS members fighters. So they took
Speaker 1: her to a jail and she stand the jail for
Speaker 1: fifteen days and they're supposed to kill her. So anyhow
Speaker 1: she survived. She managed to get out and be released,
Speaker 1: and she was waiting on this came. She joined that
Speaker 1: it was obvious that if all Kurdistan had more to
Speaker 1: say about her time in ISIS jail, But for the moment,
Speaker 1: I moved forward with questions. I wanted to know how
Speaker 1: all of the radical political ideas of the large Alan
Speaker 1: had sat with a young woman just freed from ISIS captivity.
Speaker 1: And somehow this education it was sometimes making like a
Speaker 1: comparision for me about my ex life en slavery life,
Speaker 1: she said, and my new one. You know, I was
Speaker 1: like questioning all my ex life. Oh you're As we
Speaker 1: moved on, she told us about her first time shooting
Speaker 1: a rifle. She found it fun and wanted to keep
Speaker 1: shooting after they ran out of bullets. She also told
Speaker 1: us about her first time in combat during the grinding
Speaker 1: battle to retake Raca from Isis. So somehow, you know,
Speaker 1: like our animate wasn't easy and it was eis So
Speaker 1: the first time when I went there, I have a
Speaker 1: feel I have. I was somehow afraid. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a new for me to to be there.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I was like super concentrating
Speaker 1: and you know, take care to do all these things.
Speaker 1: When she mentions the importance of paying attention, she's referring
Speaker 1: to the fact that every Isis battlefield was absolutely filthy
Speaker 1: with unexploded ordinance. This is something I experienced myself during
Speaker 1: the Siege of Mosel, stepping through neighborhoods that had been
Speaker 1: liberated by Isis minutes earlier. Not only were the streets
Speaker 1: filled with duds unexploded bombs from coalition aircraft and artillery
Speaker 1: from the Iraqi Army, but the whole fucking place was
Speaker 1: booby trapped. To helen back, veteran soldiers would point out
Speaker 1: specific wires looped across doorways and the entrances to alleys.
Speaker 1: They take me around and show where those wires connected
Speaker 1: to piles of high explosives. They'd also point out numerous
Speaker 1: abandoned vehicle based i e. D s and suicide vests
Speaker 1: littering the ground like straight condoms on the San Francisco
Speaker 1: sidewalk um. So before you said you wanted to enjoin
Speaker 1: Mark Jars revenge for what happened when you were living
Speaker 1: on the Isis and for all the women, then you
Speaker 1: went to the capital, to Rocca and chase them out.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you know you've got that revenge? No?
Speaker 1: Not yet, I mean she said, like as I said,
Speaker 1: like I when I threw myself. If all the woman's
Speaker 1: are not free, I'm not the take it didn't take
Speaker 1: our evenge and we were going to if we didn't
Speaker 1: completely defeated Isis from the roots. Were still are working
Speaker 1: on that. I didn't get our revenge it. Jake pressed
Speaker 1: a little further, asking how of all Kurdistan believed she
Speaker 1: could get revenge for the crimes Isis committed against her
Speaker 1: and the other innocent people of Northeast Syria struggling resistance.
Speaker 1: We have a determination, this is the only way to
Speaker 1: the conversation moves on and eventually we wind up on
Speaker 1: the subject of male supremacy and the nicab the full
Speaker 1: head covering garment isis made mandatory for all women. How
Speaker 1: does she feel when she sees that we were in
Speaker 1: rock yesterday and then we're more women than I've seen
Speaker 1: anywhere else in Rosia? How does she feel when she
Speaker 1: sees that? Does she feel like sort of that those
Speaker 1: attitudes of male supremacy that are still very deeply ingrained
Speaker 1: are kind of the roots of ISIS. I feel so
Speaker 1: pitiful for them, and I saw them. I feel like
Speaker 1: for that we have to resist that in order to
Speaker 1: say free all though so many this because this closet,
Speaker 1: this thing is represented ISIS. It's representing ISIS mentality, which
Speaker 1: is enslavered in the woman because of that, wanted to
Speaker 1: change one or two to you know. Next, I asked
Speaker 1: her how she thinks the men she has served with,
Speaker 1: particularly the older men, have adapted to serving alongside women.
Speaker 1: Both have all Kurdistan and have all the friend. The
Speaker 1: hPG im mediately is on burst out laughing, had been
Speaker 1: away and he is a male. At that point, have
Speaker 1: all the friend speaks up. While I wait for Hobbat's translation,
Speaker 1: I wonder if you might try to walk back the
Speaker 1: claims of lingering bias among male soldiers in the STF.
Speaker 1: Those for those others struggle those for those, it's it's
Speaker 1: higher than the others, you know. Yea. So the idea,
Speaker 1: she said, like, yeah, we cannot change anything. Are not
Speaker 1: the history of the oppressed of the woman. It's a
Speaker 1: long history, fast out and years ago. So this mentality
Speaker 1: have been, uh, you know, take a place in the
Speaker 1: community for the women men. Everyone likes still believing in that.
Speaker 1: So to change it that it's another they are not
Speaker 1: it's gonna attack. Even what she's saying, training there, and
Speaker 1: she's referring to the month of required ideological training, have
Speaker 1: all A friend admitted freely that the trainers at this
Speaker 1: academy we're taking on an almost insurmountable task fighting against
Speaker 1: generations of entrenched misogyny. It's like, I need a lot
Speaker 1: of time to be changed. So even now we are
Speaker 1: with our colleagues, the men colleagues in a different she said,
Speaker 1: colleagues there we are. There are our friends, they are
Speaker 1: were all commardes, they are and we're fighting together, we're
Speaker 1: taking training, we are have a living together. But that
Speaker 1: is the end. We have our struggle. We have our
Speaker 1: struggle as a woman, because if we did, we're not
Speaker 1: going to be free. Ourselves and explained to them how
Speaker 1: it's important to understand that for them also, we cannot
Speaker 1: get our results from our struggle as much as we
Speaker 1: have a man in this mentality, we have to keep
Speaker 1: struggling because in order to get this level of equality,
Speaker 1: gender equality between us, and they understand how how we
Speaker 1: have to share everything together. It's need time and we
Speaker 1: are like doing that, right, I said, like as she
Speaker 1: he's asking specifically about this elderly men or the demand
Speaker 1: who are a little bit other than the others. It's
Speaker 1: more difficulties there for sure, because they are they have
Speaker 1: this three archy mentality, Uh, you know, more in their
Speaker 1: character than the others, so we can't change it faster
Speaker 1: so they those for those men, it's higher us struggle.
Speaker 1: It's certainly fair to say that of all the Frame
Speaker 1: was not shy of admitting the shortcomings and imperfections within
Speaker 1: the SDF. I grew less worried that she was sitting
Speaker 1: in on the interview in order to somehow restrict the
Speaker 1: information I received. Her true purpose for being in the
Speaker 1: room became clearer when Jake asked his next question two
Speaker 1: things and as well say it's too drama action, don't
Speaker 1: feel the post to answer, but I want to know why,
Speaker 1: what the argument was in the market with the Isis
Speaker 1: guy and what it was like. Kabat translates the question
Speaker 1: and we see the reaction of All Kurdistan's face before
Speaker 1: she begins her response. She maintains her composure, but the
Speaker 1: story that follows is clearly not easy for her to tell.
Speaker 1: Of Ala Frine puts a hand on her comrades knee
Speaker 1: and looks her in the eyes. She seems it wants
Speaker 1: to be telling of all Kurdistan. You can do this,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to do it if it's too hard.
Speaker 1: So the problems are the argue. It started because she
Speaker 1: was fully warning this n villa and everything. But there
Speaker 1: is a built, Kabat said, belt there the man who
Speaker 1: stopped of All Kurdistan was a member of the his
Speaker 1: ba isis Is religious police. She'd been out shopping with
Speaker 1: her siblings but was forced to send them home and
Speaker 1: head to jail. Of All Kurdistan continued to tell her story,
Speaker 1: and of course neither Jake or I could understand what
Speaker 1: she was saying, but we saw very clearly the shock
Speaker 1: on Hobart's face as the story went on. That is no,
Speaker 1: so yeah, they took her to the center. They still
Speaker 1: all her gold, money, all the properts that to us
Speaker 1: with her, everything towards with him. And also they put
Speaker 1: her family his name on unless that's you know, always
Speaker 1: they were gonna double checking on them or whatever. And
Speaker 1: they first wanted to kill her, you know, excusing her.
Speaker 1: Then they changed it to one thousand five lashes. Yes,
Speaker 1: lashes as the whipping someone in the back with a
Speaker 1: long leather bull whip. I'm sure you're wondering right now,
Speaker 1: how many lashes does it take to kill a person?
Speaker 1: Can a human being survived fifteen hundred of them? And
Speaker 1: the answer is that not all lashes are created equal.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty six, a young British soldier died in
Speaker 1: London after receiving just a hundred and fifty lashes, and
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, a fourteen year old Iranian boy
Speaker 1: was given eighty five lashes and died, but that was
Speaker 1: due to the whipper accidentally hitting him in the head.
Speaker 1: And two thousand eight, Saudi Arabia sentenced a doctor to
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred lashes for prescribing a princess medication that led
Speaker 1: her to a drug addiction. The doctor survived, but he
Speaker 1: also received only fifty lashes per week until his sentence
Speaker 1: was fulfilled. There are cases of human being surviving more
Speaker 1: than fifteen hundred lashes in a single terrible beating, and
Speaker 1: so haveval Kurdistan's punishment was not necessarily a death sentence.
Speaker 1: Receiving that many lashes will, however, completely shred the outer
Speaker 1: layer of skin on your back down to the bone.
Speaker 1: I have read accounts of modern people who received fifty
Speaker 1: two a hundred lashes. They described the pain as incomprehensible.
Speaker 1: This lashes. It was by three persons because if one
Speaker 1: of them get tired, he will not get it strong,
Speaker 1: you know enough, So they try to hold that in
Speaker 1: your head. Three strong men wore themselves out beating this
Speaker 1: woman's back into bloody ribbons. One thousand, five hundred lashes,
Speaker 1: three persons changes, each one of them five hundred to
Speaker 1: keep strong as much as I can, and they still
Speaker 1: didn't break her mask. And because the woman have a predetermination,
Speaker 1: she means that have all Kurdistan's desire to be free,
Speaker 1: to escape isis is what kept her alive through the beating.
Speaker 1: For a few seconds, Jake and I just sat in
Speaker 1: silence processing the story we've heard to recover from that
Speaker 1: kind of injury to be able to like going to
Speaker 1: the world and like that's a serious injury, just make
Speaker 1: a in the whole. But she did recover, and once
Speaker 1: she did, she used the same determination that had seen
Speaker 1: her through the beating to affect her escape from ISIS
Speaker 1: controlled territory. Once she was free, she joined the SDF.
Speaker 1: If she had a weapon training and comrades with the
Speaker 1: same no man would ever whip her again. We take
Speaker 1: a break after that and then sit down to interview
Speaker 1: another young fighter. As before, have All a Friend sits
Speaker 1: in on the interview. Our next subject is younger than
Speaker 1: have All Curdistan and gives her age is nineteen. She
Speaker 1: wears camo fatigues with curly hair that has slicked back
Speaker 1: on top. She tells us she spent four or five
Speaker 1: years of her life under DASH control and gives her
Speaker 1: name as Because I am not great at reading Arabic,
Speaker 1: for the rest of this episode, I will refer to
Speaker 1: her as have All Revenge Revenge Friend. You have to
Speaker 1: admit it's a pretty badass nickname. I asked her what
Speaker 1: specific moments come to mind when she thinks about revenge
Speaker 1: her brother joint having included with the ISIS. So she
Speaker 1: wanted to take revenge those ISIS members who are who
Speaker 1: are recruiting all the others in order to using them
Speaker 1: as a tool, I guess, or in a very dehumanizing
Speaker 1: way against the other population. But the how how they
Speaker 1: destroyed our country, So I wanted to take revenge of order.
Speaker 1: I asked her how her brother explained his decision to
Speaker 1: join ISIS at the time. So, my brother, who has
Speaker 1: already liked this religious background a friend, he was always
Speaker 1: like uma in different mosques for the others look like
Speaker 1: So once he decipted for a party five days and
Speaker 1: he completely disappeim that when he returned back with you
Speaker 1: what that he's having included with the US because my cousin,
Speaker 1: he is a mere inn dash and he included my
Speaker 1: brother and the mirror is a leader within the Islamic state.
Speaker 1: About revenge lived under ISIS for almost five years, basically
Speaker 1: the entirety of her adolescence. She only escaped because the
Speaker 1: STF eventually liberated her hometown. I asked her, what was
Speaker 1: the very first thing you did once you realized you
Speaker 1: were free? So the first thing Hobart said, veil there
Speaker 1: in case it was unclear because as I said, so
Speaker 1: blush as to that closet, which she is completely dehumanizing,
Speaker 1: I guess us and looking to us not as a
Speaker 1: human being. I asked her next if she can remember
Speaker 1: the very first time she saw a woman carrying a gun.
Speaker 1: Her voice almost breaks as she answers to the dentist.
Speaker 1: And I saw a woman with a wakman and I
Speaker 1: was looking to make a conversion. How oss how she
Speaker 1: is there? And in short, she first saw a woman
Speaker 1: of the y PJ. After escaping Isis control. The sight
Speaker 1: of a free woman with a rifle was shocking, mind blowing.
Speaker 1: After so many years under Iceis control, she decided to join.
Speaker 1: I asked her how it felt the first time she
Speaker 1: held a gun of her own. My dream it was
Speaker 1: to join the And it was like I always I
Speaker 1: feel like it's an illusion or imagine I never I'm
Speaker 1: gonna happen. So whenever I was just doing that, I
Speaker 1: hold it. When it was for me, like I hope
Speaker 1: for myself, it was like already I have there a
Speaker 1: courage and wild to holded this hope for my teacher,
Speaker 1: to hold myself. You know what felt like. I was
Speaker 1: ready for that. I was a dreaming about it. I
Speaker 1: have a sporting you, so I dreamed about this my
Speaker 1: dream of my left year. Next, I asked what would
Speaker 1: she do if a man ever tried to make her
Speaker 1: put on a knee cob again? The woman and our regions,
Speaker 1: for sure, we're going to try to deface myself. We
Speaker 1: conclude our interview with of all Revenge have all A
Speaker 1: Freen gives her friend a cheerful poke on the cheek.
Speaker 1: I find the gesture striking, and I tell her son,
Speaker 1: you talk about friend that her pride and her friends
Speaker 1: has written all over her face when they talk, and
Speaker 1: her pride Linda Chicken, She didn't Tobacco said, I don't
Speaker 1: want to. She as a WANs They struggled and then
Speaker 1: they get the achievements and they I cannot highline sprint
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of thing. Have Alla Frien had initially
Speaker 1: not been willing to give an interview herself, but I've
Speaker 1: grown increasingly interested in her throughout these interviews. I started
Speaker 1: this process suspicious of her, but her relentless positivity and
Speaker 1: supportiveness towards her comrades had thoroughly won me over. I
Speaker 1: ask again if she might want to talk, and this
Speaker 1: time she says yes. My name is a free Maso.
Speaker 1: I joined the YPG myself. I'm from a Freen. My
Speaker 1: family's origins had a lot to do with me joining.
Speaker 1: My family loves their homeland. This had a big effect
Speaker 1: on me. When my brother was martyred by ISIS had
Speaker 1: an even bigger effect on me. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: it for a year. Joining the military is not easy thing.
Speaker 1: For a year until throughout all I was thinking about it,
Speaker 1: Will I go? Could I do it? I dwelled on
Speaker 1: it a lot because as a civilian person, your life
Speaker 1: will pass into a new life. That is, you take
Speaker 1: on a new life through your own choice. This created
Speaker 1: a big contradiction in me. I go, I don't go,
Speaker 1: I go. What happens? I joined like everyone else have
Speaker 1: Alla Freen is shoeless. Well inside her socks have bright
Speaker 1: English words written across them. Never give up. When I joined,
Speaker 1: of course, I was scared. At first. I told myself
Speaker 1: I wouldn't tell my family. No matter how much a
Speaker 1: family loved their homeland, they love their child even more.
Speaker 1: And so when I joined, I didn't tell my family.
Speaker 1: I said I was just going to school and that
Speaker 1: i'd be back soon. When I had arrived to the
Speaker 1: Haval's they passed the information to my family that I
Speaker 1: had joined the y PJ. At that time, my father
Speaker 1: came to me. I'll never forget what he said. He
Speaker 1: told me, this is your spirit. Then you have chosen
Speaker 1: the way that's before you. Who am I to keep
Speaker 1: you from this? But know also that if you betray
Speaker 1: this movement and come back home, I will throw you
Speaker 1: out of the house. But she made it through her
Speaker 1: training and she joined the wye pj's media center, essentially
Speaker 1: acting as a reporter or a pr agent for the militia.
Speaker 1: After receiving the basic YPJ training, I joined the media center.
Speaker 1: The first time I went to the front, I didn't
Speaker 1: go as a fighter. The first combat I ever saw
Speaker 1: was in Telera Fat. Perhaps you've heard of it. It's
Speaker 1: towards Shabbah. When you, as a woman, have just joined
Speaker 1: the military, you wish to fight and experience war. Though
Speaker 1: we as women are completely against war. When you see
Speaker 1: your society and your people under authoritarianism, you are forced
Speaker 1: to defend your own society. That time, I didnifire my
Speaker 1: gun because my comrades didn't allow me. They said, you
Speaker 1: are part of the media team. They protected me from threats.
Speaker 1: I had my weapon as well as my camera, but
Speaker 1: recording was my goal in the fight. I can play
Speaker 1: a role as part of the media team. My goal
Speaker 1: was to communicate to the public the reality of the war.
Speaker 1: Have all, a friend did not consider the defeat of
Speaker 1: ices to be the end of the y PJ struggle.
Speaker 1: She comes from no surprise, the city of a Frien,
Speaker 1: which is currently occupied by Turkish BacT Islamist malicious. There
Speaker 1: is a pain inside me. The occupation of a freen
Speaker 1: has increased my thirst for events. Every piece of news
Speaker 1: from these people have been kidnapped, to those historical landmarks
Speaker 1: have been destroyed. Every new story like this increases my pain.
Speaker 1: This pain also pushes me to take revenge. But the
Speaker 1: liberation of a friend and the victory in the war
Speaker 1: against Turkey was not nearly the end of her ambitions.
Speaker 1: Like Koreum Schamid, the head of the Woman's Economic Development
Speaker 1: Center we interviewed back at the beginning of our journey,
Speaker 1: a free Massa is a true believer. Now the goal
Speaker 1: of every fighter in YPJ is to liberate her mind.
Speaker 1: Because yes, it's true we have joined the y PJ,
Speaker 1: and thus we liberate our bodies. But this is not enough.
Speaker 1: We also have to liberate ourselves from the capitalist system.
Speaker 1: Throughout history, the first city states were built on the
Speaker 1: basis of exploiting the woman. If we go back to history,
Speaker 1: we see that it was the women who created everything
Speaker 1: in natural societies. Before the rise of city states, women
Speaker 1: were leaders. But after the system of city states was
Speaker 1: built up by men, they began a pressing women for
Speaker 1: the first time history. Throughout the last four thousand years,
Speaker 1: a system has been built up over the woman. It
Speaker 1: doesn't allow her to work, to go outside, to take
Speaker 1: up the gun, even in her own home, she is
Speaker 1: not allowed to express her opinion. Even when you get
Speaker 1: married and should live a shared life, you cannot express
Speaker 1: your own opinion. You aren't free to say what you want.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to bring an end to this mentality.
Speaker 1: We don't say that women should take a higher position
Speaker 1: than men. Our goal is a quality between women and men,
Speaker 1: to make it possible that our society can live with
Speaker 1: a free mentality. Neither women nor men should be the oppressor.
Speaker 1: There should be equality. I have many many more questions,
Speaker 1: and I wish I could have stayed there for hours
Speaker 1: asking them. But this is a military trading academy, and
Speaker 1: our interviews have come up against one of their daily
Speaker 1: training exercises, a long march in full gear with rifles. Jake,
Speaker 1: Kobot and I are invited along, and so we lace
Speaker 1: up our boots and head into the scorching heat of
Speaker 1: the rojab In afternoon, the training platoon has already marched off,
Speaker 1: so we hop into a Lawns van to catch up
Speaker 1: with them. We're hopping out. We're about to be on
Speaker 1: control with the White PG training union. Notches about let's
Speaker 1: see here about young women, nearly all of whom are
Speaker 1: carrying kalashnikovs, wearing fatigues and heads wrapped against the desert heat,
Speaker 1: some wearing hats, somewhearing Caffia's. It's an interesting mix of colors,
Speaker 1: from the the b DU camouflage which could come straight
Speaker 1: out of the US military, to the colorful, beautiful head scarves,
Speaker 1: some of them with floral prints and little silver dangly
Speaker 1: bits on the end, some women choosing to walk with
Speaker 1: their heads completely uncovered, others and ball caps. Most of
Speaker 1: them are clearly very new to holding a gun. Others,
Speaker 1: like of all Curtistan, carry their rifles with an easy
Speaker 1: familiarity born from hard use. We march with them for
Speaker 1: a while, and eventually the column comes to arrest by
Speaker 1: the shade of a copse of small trees. As they rest,
Speaker 1: the different squad leaders, including have All Curtistan, move around
Speaker 1: and help their comrades with minor uniform issues, instructing them
Speaker 1: on how to readjust bits of gear or the best
Speaker 1: way to relax while carrying an a K forty seven.
Speaker 1: I'm struck by how profoundly different this feels from the
Speaker 1: stereotypical image of a boot camp. No one here is
Speaker 1: yelling at anyone. Instead, instructors and students make frequent gentle
Speaker 1: physical contact, touching each other on the arms and shoulders.
Speaker 1: They giggle toss pieces of grass at one another during
Speaker 1: playful arguments. Yet all the same, they learned the proper
Speaker 1: way to march with their guns and move in gear
Speaker 1: through the hell of Assyrian summer. The White Pj's reputation
Speaker 1: on the battlefield speaks to the fact that the style
Speaker 1: of training is effective. After a few minutes of rest,
Speaker 1: the unit packs up and moves out, continuing its marks
Speaker 1: through the desert, I stand and watch them pass. I
Speaker 1: look at of all Curdistan, marching with her back straight,
Speaker 1: despite the mass of scars that lurk beneath her uniform shirt.
Speaker 1: Like her, nearly all these young women spent years of
Speaker 1: their lives living under Isis, forced to wear long black
Speaker 1: robes covering them from head to toe. Even in scorching
Speaker 1: hundred and ten degree days like these, they were helpless,
Speaker 1: the unarmed victims of a death worshiping colt built on
Speaker 1: hateful masculinity. As they march past me, I split my
Speaker 1: gaze between their trumping column in the Turkish border wall,
Speaker 1: which looms as ever on the horizon. For all I know,
Speaker 1: there are bullets for every one of these young women
Speaker 1: waiting just a few miles away on the other side
Speaker 1: of that fortification. And yet the tears that threatened at
Speaker 1: the corners of my vision are not tears of sorrow,
Speaker 1: because there is one thing, and only one thing that
Speaker 1: I know for certain. These women will never be slaves again.
Speaker 1: Shout Chou chou partijiano or game sin do be moy.
Speaker 1: The Women's War is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.