Thread by @CommuneInt

10 days - 10 Years: A brief history of the Rojava Revolution - its achievements & the importance to defend it!

The history of the Kurdish people is rooted in oppression, resistance and organization. On March 12th 2004, 30 Kurds are killed during a riot at a soccer match in Qamişlo. This event gave rise to the first self-defense groups, structured in 2011 as The Peopleʼs Protection Units.

June 1979, less than a year after PKK’s creation (24-11-78), Serok Apo crosses the Turkish-Syrian border to Kobane. Since then, education played an essential role in the construction of Kurdish autonomy which will become 25 yrs later the democratic confederalism in Rojava!

The Arab Spring started on December 18th 2010, after a self-immolation in Tunisia, spread to Syria in March 2011. The Kurds mobilize & take advantage of the power vacuum created by the civil war caused by Assad’s brutal repression, laying the foundations for future autonomy.

Natural society's self-organization is a thousand-year-old tradition. With the new paradigm of Democratic Confederalism, structures for a democratic, ecological and gender-liberated society are created in the early 2000s, mainly in Bakur, at its core is a system of councils.

The Kurdish Youth had been secretly organizing for years & played a major role in the creation of the first councils & self-defense structures: The YPG (People’s Defense Units), was set up by volunteers in 2011 for the protection of all the peoples in Rojava.

Mid-2012 Syrian troops are relocated from Northern #Syria to other, more strategic locations. Taking advantage of the vacuum, a self-proclaimed governing body is founded (’Kurdish Supreme Committee’) by the PYD an the KNC (the two main syrian kurdish parties at this moment).

The official anniversary of #Rojava’s revolution is July 19, when control is taken over Kobanî. The days after other cities (as Efrîn, Serê Kaniyê or large part of the emblematic Qamişlo) fell without any major clashes, as regime forces withdrew without any significant resistance

Women have been part of syrian kurdish armed resistance since as early as 2011. The #YPJ (Women’s Defense Units) were founded as all-female fighting force on April 2013 (following the path of women guerilla units): a step for autonomous female structures at all levels of society!

Although Assad’s government, which has never been an ally, made room for the start of this unprecedented experiment of autonomy, the revolution had to face, very quickly, the attacks of jihadist groups. The first major battle took place against the Al-Nusra Front in Serê Kaniyê.

The #Rojava revolution is a women's revolution!

After months of de facto rule - preliminary steps, #Rojava’s autonomy is formally-officially declared on January 9th 2014 as Democratic Federation. 3self-ruling cantons are established: Afrin, Jazira, and Kobanî. Elections are held, popular assemblies and community centers formed

The challenges are great, Syrian chaos is favorable to the emergence of jihadist factions, some of which supported by Turkey. The stakes are ideological but also economical. The autonomous regions, separated from each other, are particularly rich in petrol, water and olive oil.

End of January 2014 first ’Social Contract’ (kind of constitution) is adopted, fruit of a consensus reached between fifty political parties and organizations. All agreed against the formation of nation-state, against centralization, and in favor of gender equality and democracy.

Regional - international forces attack the revolution on multiple fronts. Between them #ISIS gains strength declaring new caliphate, with capital Raqqa in June 2014. The jihadist threats are multiple & the battles are fierce on the outskirts of the cantons literally cut in three.

A stateless model of radical #democracy whose realisation involves forms of emancipation of the citizen, from a subject to an active participant:
rojavainformationcenter.com/storage/2021/0…