[Education to Melbourne branch of Socialist Alliance, August 2, 2022.]
There are around 40-45 million Kurds — about 20 million in Turkey (a quarter of the population), 10-12 million in Iran, about 8 million in Iraq and 3.5 million in Syria. There is a Kurdish diaspora in Western Europe of as many as 2 million people, about half of them in Germany.
In each country they face a struggle for their rights. In Iraq there is the Kurdish Regional Government area but it is controlled by a neo-colonial kleptocracy headed by the Barzani family which colludes with Turkey to keep the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in check.
Turkey’s war on the Kurds
Modern Turkey was established in 1923. In the 100 years since, the ruling circles have never recognised the Kurdish people and their aspirations. At times even the Kurdish language has been illegal. Several uprisings were crushed.
In Turkey today, the Kurdish people are oppressed and every attempt by them to organise, to assert their basic rights, is met with heavy repression. The still legal Kurdish based HDP faces heavy repression. Thousands of its activists are in jail or facing charges; HDP mayors have been sacked and jailed.
Turkey regards Kurdish activity anywhere to be a mortal threat. It not only fights the Kurdish movement inside Turkey but abroad.
Northern Iraq (South Kurdistan)
In northern Iraq today, Turkey is waging a full-scale war against the Kurdish liberation forces of the PKK. The mountainous PKK-controlled area is called the Medya Defence Zones.
Despite its technical superiority, Turkey is meeting determined and effective resistance. The guerillas have prepared very well over a long period of time and have learnt many lessons from battling Turkish forces.
Turkey is trying to construct a string of fortified hilltop bases to deny the guerillas access to Turkey to the north, and Sinjar (Shengal ) and Rojava to the west. The guerillas use small teams, snipers, infiltration tactics and “war tunnels”. Female fighters make up a large part of the resistance forces. They have killed hundreds of Turkish troops (never acknowledged by the regime) and the invasion has been stalemated.
Turkey uses bombing, drones, helicopters, artillery and in desperation has resorted to the widespread use of poison gas — supposedly banned internationally — to neutralise the tunnel warfare of the guerillas.
Obviously the resistance forces have had losses but they seem to be more than holding their own.
Attacks on Shengal (Sinjar)
Between Rojava and Iraqi Kurdistan lies Shengal (Arab name Sinjar), centred on a huge 62km-long mountain rearing out of the plain. This is the ancestral home of the Yazedis, a Kurdish people with their own distinct religion. In 2014 they were targeted by IS, betrayed by the Barzani regime, and suffered a terrible massacre.
They were saved by the PKK and the YPG/YPJ. They set up Yazedi self-defence forces and today there is a complicated struggle between the Yazedis, the Barzani regime and the Iraqi central government. Turkey’s war on the Kurds extends to the Yazedis and there have been drone strikes, bombings and assassinations.
Turkey’s long war on Rojava
In Syria, Turkey regards the Kurdish-inspired Rojava Revolution as a threat to its security. Of course, this is complete rubbish. Rojava does not threaten Turkey in any material way. It is the “threat” of a good example — of ethnic and religious inclusivity, the liberation of women, and respect for ecology.
Turkey has been waging a war against the Rojava Revolution for a long time. It has long been the key backer of the Islamic State. When IS failed to crush Rojava, Turkey directly invaded and occupied the westernmost canton of Afrin in early 2018. Ever since it has been a lawless place as Islamist gangs loot and terrorise. The Afrin Liberation Forces continue to strike the invaders.
The next year Turkey further occupied a big chunk of Rojava and it is gearing up to make yet another large-scale incursion. Turkish autocrat Erdogan has stated that Turkey wants a 30km “security zone” along the border. This zone would include most of Rojava’s big population centres — there wouldn’t be much left.
Over the last month, Turkish forces have carried out hundreds of attacks against Rojava — using artillery, ground forces and drones. But Erdogan is waiting for a green light from both Russia and the US before launching an all-out assault. So far he hasn’t got it and may not in the future.
In Afrin and elsewhere in the Turkish occupied territories, massive ethnic cleansing is taking place. Erdogan wants to replasce the Kurdish population with Islamists and Syrian refugees.
And all the while Turkey is waging economic war on Rojava — by restricting the border crossings — and a water war — Turkey controls the headwaters of the Euphrates river and restricts the flow to damage Rojava’s agriculture but this also badly impacts both Syria and Iraq
The West sits on its hands
Turkey could not proceed in its war against the Kurdish people without Western backing — neither in Turkey, northern Iraq nor in Syria. The West does absolutely nothing to hinder Turkey and in reality it supports the crushing of the highly progressive Kurdish national movement. A free and organised people is a deadly threat to Western interests in the Middle East or anywhere else.
Supported by millions of people, the Kurdish movement inspired by the ideas of Abdullah Ocalan (jailed by Turkey since 1999) is today the most revolutionary force in the Middle East.
One example: Western countries have largely refused to take responsibility for their nationals who fought for IS and were captured. Australia, for instance, has so far refused to bring back several dozen women and children stranded in the huge al-Hol refugee camp where underground Islamist cells still operate, intimidating and killing. Maintaining such camps is a huge drain on a poor and struggling country.
What Rojava stands for
The Rojava Revolution is 10 years old. It has survived against all odds. It has withstood the forces of the Syrian regime, the Islamic State gangs, and Turkey and weathered the ups and downs — both cooperation and backstabbing— of Washington and Moscow.
It is an immensely progressive project.
- In an intensely patriarchal region, Rojava has broken the mould. It has made women’s liberation a centrepiece of the revolution. It has created a women’s army (the YPJ, the Women’s Protection Units) which leads and fights and has furnished thousands of martyrs to the cause.
- Every genuine revolution draws women into the struggle but there has never been anything like Rojava. Apart from the military struggle, every institution has a system of co-chairs, one male and one female. There is a campaign against domestic violence with women’s centres in the villages and towns. From being completely excluded from the economy, now tens of thousands of women work in agriculture, the service and public sectors. There are scores of women’s cooperatives.
- Rojava is building a system of grassroots popular democracy based on assemblies and communes.
- Another hallmark of the revolution is its drive to include all ethnic and religious groups — Arabs in particular since Arab chauvinism is a foundation of the Assad regime (Syria is officially the Syrian Arab Republic). But also Assyrians (Christians), Turkmen, Circassians and so on. The SDF is now probably majority Arab.
- As Peter Boyle explains in a July 5 Green Left article, ecology is a big focus of the revolution. This includes trying to re-green the landscape, long deliberately denuded of tree cover, and trying to develop a sustainable agriculture. All this is life and death for the people of northern Syria. Global warming is a deadly threat there and there is not much time to prepare for it.
Fighting for socialism
As Behrouz Boochani has observed, Rojava — strictly the Autonomous Administration of Northern and East Syria — is the most progressive and democratic development ever seen in the Middle East. It is the struggle for socialism in perhaps the most unlikely place but we should learn from it and do all we can to support it.