by: ihatedictatorsPosted on:

Betraying the Rojava revolution

The photo shows two Kurdish women from the YPJ, probably sitting on a pickup truck, smiling at the camera. Both are wearing military uniforms. The one on the left, whose head is covered with a black scarf decorated with flowers and which she holds tightly around her throat and mouth to prevent it from being blown away by the wind, has her back to the photographer and has just turned around to make the victory sign. Behind her, on the left, is a waving YPJ flag. The other woman, on the lower right, is holding a waving yellow flag of the Autonomous Administration in her right hand; with her left hand, she is making the victory sign. In front of her, to the left of her face, an AK47 appears vertically.These are terrible days. The democratic confederalism revolution in north-eastern Syria is facing its most serious threat yet. Donald Trump has betrayed it, again. Just like in 2018 and 2019.

In the early years of the Syrian civil war, the Obama administration had pushed for the Kurdish self-defence units YPG and YPJ to operate within the more reassuring multi-ethnic framework of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and for the latter to fight ISIS on the ground, thus limiting themselves to air cover without any American or Western soldiers having to risk their lives. The war against the caliphate in the east was not even over, and Trump had been president for just over a year when, in 2018, Erdogan sent his army across the border in the west and took the Kurdish canton of Afrin. Trump shrugged it off and, a few months later, reduced the military presence in the region, giving Turkey free rein to take the cities of Girê Spî and Serê Kaniyê in its second invasion.

This third betrayal is the most serious. As candidly admitted by the American envoy to Syria, the autocrat in Washington (how else can he be described now?) has decided that the partner in the fight against ISIS (which still exists, underground) is now the self-proclaimed government of Ahmad al-Sharaa. After eleven years, the SDF is no longer needed. In a few days, with US approval and considerable help from Turkey, the national army, which until 2024 was nothing more than the Islamist militia of the city of Idlib, Tahrir al-Sham, took control of most of the territory of the Daanes, the democratic and autonomous administration of north-eastern Syria. It is now reduced to more or less the old cantons of Cizîrê and Kobanî, two of the three that formed the original settlement of Rojava at its birth.

As we write, a four-day ceasefire is in force.

We cannot imagine that these are the last days of a revolution that, unique in the 21st century, has shown the way towards a more egalitarian, just and ecological human coexistence, where cooperation takes the place of coercion, and municipalism the one of the national state. We cannot imagine all this happening amid indifference and silence, because if that were the case, Trump would not be the only one to have betrayed.

(photo: kurdishstruggle)