Elif Kaya
The developments in Syria over the past month have been dizzying. It’s hard to follow who is aligned with whom. Yesterday’s terrorist suddenly transforms into “hero” in a suit and tie, in keeping with the Western vision. Statements of camaraderie from UN representatives to intelligence chiefs, from foreign ministers to presidents, longing glances, handshakes and proud, triumphant aerial views of Damascus at night—as if two lovebirds were reunited.
States working to shape the region according to colonial interests, in collaboration with the mainstream media, are striving to create a “modern” folk hero out of yesterday’s “terrorists” who were only yesterday selling women as slaves in markets and implementing policies of savage massacre. Meanwhile, people continue to be massacred on the basis of their beliefs, gender and ethnicity. Instead of confronting the events that have unfolded to redesign Syria, and attempting to overcome its problems at the root, efforts are being focused on creating illusions to erase the past and “cleansing” collective memory.
Although many EU countries have recognised 2014’s ISIS massacre of the Yazidi community as genocide, those responsible have still not been tried, the powers behind the act have still not been exposed, and damages for material and moral losses have still not been paid. As a result, the Yazidi genocide is still continuing. Because there has been no confrontation and accountability, the perpetrators of genocide are today being turned into heroes. These are members of the same family, accomplices in the same crimes. Some of them have been held in prisons in Rojava [North and East Syria] without trial for years, while others are being assessed in Damascus for their compatibility with Western powers. Supposedly, women can now take photographs unveiled in Damascus, pursue education if they wish, and there’s even a female minister responsible for women. Father Christmas has come to Damascus; Christmas has been declared a public holiday… What more could one ask for?
But not so long ago—merely 8 or 9 years—the people now being thus honoured sold women in slave markets in this region. People of different faiths and cultures who did not wish to live under Shari’a [Islamic] law were brutally murdered. This is because jihadist ideology treats differences as grounds for enmity and views their elimination as the goal of the struggle. This is not something that can be resolved by changing a person’s dress; it is an issue of ideology and mindset. Let us assume something has changed. But how can women, living in a place where a CNN journalist must cover her hair to conduct an interview, have the chance to be free? Forget organised political participation or the right to elect and ve elected; women can’t even walk on the streets without a male companion.
The mainstream media, however, seeks to invert this reality through approaches that place an emphasis on liberal demands. It almost entirely ignores the women’s revolution of Rojava [North and East Syria], which has inspired the world and turned a desert into an oasis. The democratic confederal system implemented in Rojava is a tangible example of how to build societal relationships based on freedom, not only for the Kurdish people but for Syria as a whole. Arabs, Armenians, Turkmen, Assyrians, Kurds, Alawites, Yazidis, Sunnis, Christians and Muslims have developed the best example of living with dignity, together. And within the Rojava revolution, the women’s revolution has also charted the ways and means for women’s free participation in societal life. Here, women have forged a new social contract with society, grounded in freedom. They have both seized the opportunity to live in dignity and honour with their own ethnic and religious identities, and devised ways to overcome forms of oppression women suffer by virtue of being women.
One of the organisations [in Rojava] is the Zenubiya Women’s Community, formed by Arab women. These Arab women, like other women in the region, have organised on an authentic and autonomous basis for the first time, seizing the right to participate in all aspects of life, decision-making and implementation. However, when the Turkish state and its proxies occupied Manbij, they deliberately targeted and murdered three leaders of the Zenubiya Women’s Community: Kamar El-Soud, Ayşe Abdulkadir and [a woman known only as] İman.
The mentality that kills women is the same as that which sells them as slaves in markets, because those [who hold this mentality] are enemies of diversity and of women. The recent rapes of two young girls in Manbij are also linked to this mindset. But it is for this reason that the people and the women who have experienced the honourable life rise up against these groups.
In short, the policies of the colonialist system, to disregard the women’s revolution and present liberal methods as solutions, are understandable. This is because colonialism does not want a society where women live freely. For this reason, those seeking a free, democratic and communal life need to stand up still more for Rojava and the women’s revolution. To defend Rojava is to ensure the bring utopia to life, to enable the spread of the women’s revolution.
