Workers Solidarity Movement

The 12th Dublin anarchist bookfair heard this account from Wendy, a Human Rights & immigration lawyer who visited Rojava in May 2018 as part of a fact finding delegation. [audio]

Rough notes of topics covered; May 2018 delegation by Peace in Kurdistan Campaign and Kongreya Star woman organisation.  Acknowledging limits of a short eyewitness organised trip, really really impressed by what I saw, some context about Democratic Federation of North Syria (Rojava), decision making structures, situation in Manbij, Kobane women’s communes, central role of gender equality and local contexts, the women’s only village, men serving the tea, the 3 levels of work, political, societal and the personal, anti-capitalism & co-ops, distribution of regime land to co-ops, remaining private property and the dangers of ethnic tension around redistribution, nationalism & ethnic groups, not a Kurdish project, visiting Kobane and conditions there, Kobane before the revolution, the revolution in Kobane from a women’s liberation perspective, ISIS targeting the women’s revolution with terror, the last cat in Kobane, Turkey assisting ISIS, situation in Afrin, sense of betrayal after playing the leading role in defeating ISIS, challenges of women liberation in the Manbij region, attitudes to western volunteers, economic work of the women’s movement, taxation system and the challenge of external trade, peoples mindset was positive despite horrible experiences because they saw what they were doing as such big forward step ‘Rojava is free; Here there is construction, everywhere else there is destruction’, what happens when Assad comes looking for the oil and agriculture, responding to some common western left criticisms, womens organising in Rojava as against Ireland