On Monday I wrote, here, this:
Turkey and Kurdish Genocide: Can We Make Rojava Green Again, or Will it be Drenched in its Own Blood?
it has begun. The Egalitarian, Ecological, Participatory Democracy that smashed ISiS to hell with women soldiers is under attack. Soon, unless there is help from unlikely sources, it will be no more.
There are those on the left who support Trump's decision to abandon our allies in the fight against ISiS, and some on the right -- notably Senator Lindsey Graham ("Pray for the Kurds.") and Pat Robertson, of all people (“The President of the United States is in danger of losing the mandate of Heaven if he permits this to happen.”), not to mention many on Fox News, condemn this impulsive decision by Trump, most openly criticizing the President for the first time.
Djene Bajalan and Michael Brooks wrote a very insightful piece yesterday, ominously titled, The Annihilation of Rojava, in Jacobin.
They open with a stark reality for both the left and right:
A US withdrawal from Syria that cleared the way for the destruction of the Kurds’ radical democratic experiment would not serve the cause of peace — and it would not be a blow to US imperialism.
In the political vacuum of the Syrian Civil War, Kurds created a successful, liberatory ecumenical, egalitarian confederacy within a nation-state, just over the border from Turkey, one of the most heavily armed nations, a country that exterminated Armenians a scant hundred years ago, and a country that at one point banned certain letters of the alphabet to prevent the Kurdish language from print.
But Rojava forces crushed ISiS with American support. They were even aspiring to Make Rojava Green Again.
From the Jacobin article:
Following the rise of ISIS and its dramatic control of vast swaths of Syria and Iraq, the Syrian Kurds emerged as one of the key groups in the coalition constructed by the United States to combat the advance of the self-proclaimed caliphate. This alliance was always a marriage of convenience. In ideological terms, it led to the peculiar situation whereby US military support was facilitating the formation of a leftist experiment based upon Öcalan’s interpretations of the work of New York anarchist Murry [sic] Bookchin, Democratic Confederalism. More seriously from Washington’s perspective, this pact undermined relations with Turkey, a US ally, as Erdoğan grew ever more hostile to the Syrian Kurds. In short, the US’s partnership with the Syrian Kurds created unsustainable tensions in US foreign policy.
Rojava turned seven recently. Somehow it survived that long. Wes Enzinna had a Cover Story for the New York Times Magazine Section, 4 years ago next month, titled, A Dream of a Secular Utopia in ISiS' Backyard. Shortly after that, I shared here, on DK, The Most Important Ideas You Never Heard of: Kurdish Rojava & Egalitarian, Ecological Revolution.
Bajalan and Brooks:
It seemed inevitable that, at some point, the United States would have to make a choice between Ankara and Rojava. While the war with ISIS continued, that decision could be delayed. But with the effective defeat of ISIS, the reason d’étre of the American presence in Syria came to an end. Now, with Trump’s announcement that the United States could withdraw from Syria — a decision previewed in December 2018 — that contradiction in US policy might be resolved in favor of Erdogan.
Inevitable indeed.
In my aforementioned DK piece from 4 years ago, I alluded to Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, a science fiction novel of an experiment on a moon, attempting a similar ecological, egalitarianism, participatory democracy, as it was also based on the work of Murray Bookchin. I ended with:
Yet, a revolution has its moment. Whether it is the Arab Spring, or the Occupy Movement, or Ten Days That Shook the World, there is a time when a spark hits some kindling and a time, or place, ignites. Whether the flame becomes strong, or withers without additional fuel, or gets put out, violently, always remains to be seen.
And so, now, we have Rojava. A man serving a life sentence in Turkey found one of Murray’s books, decided to read them all, and then convinced his followers to create a real-life laboratory of liberatory expression. In a most difficult historical situation, in a most remote region, surrounded by enemies on all sides, this egalitarian exercise could almost be on a fictional moon. But it is real.
Then again, Marx did not foresee Russia as the ideal place for his revolution, either....
But how could it last? How could it have even lasted this long, with Erdogan just across the border?
The Jacobin article goes deep into the history of the Kurds in the area, and concludes that, while the Right has been most vocal in protesting Trump's green light to Erdogan, this is not a move to be endorsed by anti-Imperialists:
The threat Turkey presents to the Syrian Kurds is one of existential proportions. If Turkey occupies Northern Syria, the social progress made in the region, including advances in women’s liberation and popular self-government, would be destroyed. We have already seen Turkey and the Islamist militias it backs reverse these gains in Afrin.
More broadly, Turkey’s plan to resettle millions of Arab Syrian refugees in the region would be carried out at the expense of the Kurdish population. Erdoğan is determined to not only end this specific Kurdish administration but to quash the Kurds’ potential to play a decisive role in the affairs of Northern Syria in perpetuity. Again, Turkey’s actions in Afrin — seizing Kurdish lands, driving Kurds from their homes — provide an ominous foreshadowing of the potential fate of the rest of Rojava.
So we’re left another important set of questions: would a US pullout that facilitates a Turkish invasion truly be a victory for the cause of peace? And considering Turkey’s longstanding membership in NATO, would it even be a blow to US imperialism?
Yes, for the Kurds, this is an existential threat.
In retrospect, nearly all of history appears to have been inevitable. And, without an extraordinary, as-of-yet intervention from an unlikely ally-yer-to-be, Rojava looks to be destined to be one brief shining moment, an instructional historical instance of a liberatory, egalitarian, ecological, participatory democracy - An ephemeral proof of what is possible, as facts that were once on the ground.
I end with the words of Phil Ochs, from his classic Crucifixion, changing the words only slightly:
And you say you can't believe it, it's a sacrilegious shame?
Now who would want to hurt all those heroes of the game?
But you know, I predicted it, I know knew they had to fall.
How did it happen? I hope the suffering is small.
Tell me every detail, I've got to know it all.
And do you have a picture of the pain?