Today the people of Manbij are carrying out a general strike to protest the Syrian regime's potential entry into the town following the US withdrawal. Most of the city is shuttered. To put this strike in context, here is a thread on the history of resistance in this town. (1/n)
In 2012, the regime controlled Manbij. But that May, there was a massive general strike in the city. About a mo later, Manbij was liberated with hardly a shot fired. For the next 1.5 years, Manbij was governed by a Revolutionary Council in an experiment in participatory democracy
Manbij featured perhaps the most developed political system to emerge in any rebel area outside of Darayya. There were 11 local newspapers--before the revolution, there had been just one. Dozens of incipient political parties, from secular to Islamist, appeared.
The revolutionary period featured many strikes--like the one below in solidarity with martyrs in Ghouta. But soon a current emerged that opposed the regime but also opposed the Revolutionary Council's laissez-faire economic polices and criminality by some FSA factions.
By 2013, the city was riven into rival revolutionary camps. For the first time, there were strikes and protests against the Revolutionary Council and some FSA factions. ISIS exploited this divide and captured the city in January 2014.
ISIS imposed totalitarian rule on the city, but remarkably, activists managed to organize a general strike in May 2014, and shut the entire city down. As far as I know, it is the only example of mass civil disobedience against ISIS anywhere.
ISIS feared this act more than bombs or bullets. Here's an excerpt of a conversation between Abu Luqman, then the ISIS emir of Aleppo province, and his lieutenants in Manbij about the strike. They are furious and terrified.
ISIS arrested the four alleged ringleaders of the strike, who were revolutionary activists since 2011, but was not able to punish most of the strike participants for fear of sparking further resistance. The four ringleaders, though, were never seen again.
In Aug 2016, a US-SDF coalition captured Manbij. SDF sought to impose conscription on the city as it had elsewhere in Rojava, but in 2018 the city carried out a general strike against this, too. SDF was forced to scrap the conscription law.
The Syrian regime is now on the outskirts of the city. Today's strike is an avowed rejection of Assad's return, but also evidence that whatever was awakened in 2011 has yet to be fully extinguished. /end
