A Road Unforeseen

by Meredith Tax

  Democratic Economy

  Because the Rojava cantons were under siege on all sides, their people had to become economically self-sufficient in a hurry, even though 70 percent of their resources were going to fund the war. They knew how to grow food, but gasoline and electricity were enormous problems, as were weapons. They had shortages in many areas but by the time the academic delegation visited in December 2013, Rojava had moved towards setting up what one of their economic advisors called a “community economy.” Janet Biehl, who was part of the delegation, was immensely impressed by what she saw: “‘If there is only bread, then we all have a share,’ the adviser told us. We visited an economics academy and economic cooperatives: a sewing cooperative in Derik, making uniforms for the defense forces; a cooperative greenhouse, growing cucumbers and tomatoes; a dairy cooperative in Rimelan, where a new shed was under construction. The Kurdish areas are the most fertile parts of Syria, home of its abundant wheat supply, but the Baath regime had deliberately kept the area pre-industrial, a source of raw materials. Hence wheat was cultivated but could not be milled into flour. We visited a mill, newly constructed since the revolution, improvised from local materials. It now provides flour for the bread consumed in Cizire, whose residents get three loaves a day.”45

  The same month the academic delegation visited Cizire, a Turkish journalist interviewed Dr. Amaad Yousef, the Minister of Economy for Afrin, the smallest canton, cut off from the other two and almost completely farmland. Yousef proudly listed all they had built in a year and a half, with virtually no outside help. “Right now in Efrîn there are fifty soap factories, twenty olive oil factories, 250 olive processing plants, seventy factories making construction material, four hundred textile workshops, eight shoe factories, five factories producing nylon, fifteen factories processing marble. Two mills and two hotels have been built. We are the first and only place producing soap in Syria. We are working on developing commerce around dairy products, fruit, and other foodstuffs. We are doing all of this in the villages so that the people return to their villages. . . . A dam was built to provide drinking water. We created a ‘made in Efrîn’ brand. We forbid the founding of any more olive factories from an environmental perspective. We also forbid workshops melting lead, to protect human health.”46

  All this progress was in spite of the fact that Afrin had been blockaded for three years, cut off by Turkey on one side and surrounded by Jabhat al-Nusra and other jihadi groups on the others. As the war in nearby Aleppo intensified, Afrin came under sharper attack by al-Nusra, beginning in July 2015. On February 3, 2016 its democratic self-administration committee sent an urgent appeal to the UN, the US, and the EU, saying:

  For three years, the Afrin Canton has been under a dual siege. On the one hand, there are armed groups in the east and south that launch assaults, block roads, ban the entry of food and medical aid to the canton, obstruct movement of civilians from and to the canton and kidnap them. On the other hand, the Turkish government imposes a firm closure on the border from north and west, and toughens the siege, despite the fact that the Democratic Self-Administration areas make up the largest part of the Syrian-Turkish border and are the safest on both sides. . . .

  The siege laid on Afrin and the loss of food, medicines, and babies’ milk, etc. puts the lives of hundreds of thousands in danger and worsens their suffering. The canton hosts tens of thousands of displaced families from different areas of Syria and cities, opens its doors to all Syrians from different ethnic and sectarian backgrounds fleeing war, and provides them a shelter. This has caused extra burden for the canton due to lack of capability, life difficulties, the shortage of basic and urgent life necessities of food and medicine, and the difficulty getting them due to the siege. All these foretell a humanitarian catastrophe intensified due to complete absence of international organizations and the non-reaching of aids offered by international sides. . . . In light of the substantial US influence and role in the Syrian crisis, and considering the American administration’s positive and effective role in finding a peaceful and democratic solution to the Syrian crisis, we appeal to your immediate and urgent support intervention to lift the siege on Afrin Canton . . .47

  The canton’s self-administration or management committee had done its best to handle these scarcities. In the beginning of the siege, during the winter of 2013, the price of flour in Afrin went from 3,000 to 65,000 Syrian pounds per sack, putting it out of reach for many people. The canton management made a rule that any flour sold for more than 4,100 would be confiscated. Then they decided the canton should set up two more mills and stop exporting flour. The price went down to 3,500.48

  This exemplified the PYD view of how to build a cooperative economy that was nothing like the centralized command economies of Cold War Eastern Europe, where everything was owned by the state. Dr. Dara Kurdaxi, an economist and a member of the committee for economic revival and development in Afrin, explained how the cooperative economy operated: “The oil industry is under the control of the councils and managed by the workers’ committee. The refineries produce cheap benzine for the cooperatives and the staff of the autonomous government. A great deal of land which was previously nationalised under Assad as part of the anti-Kurdish policies is now managed by free Rojava through agricultural cooperatives. Doctors’ committees are working to form a free health system.” She contrasted this with the economy of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, “where the social contradictions between the system of the client state . . . and the socially disadvantaged are becoming ever sharper.”

  In Kurdaxi’s view, such a system was no longer viable: “The artificial creation of needs which ventures forth to find new markets, and the boundless desire for ever more gigantic profits makes the gap between rich and poor ever wider, and expands the camp of those who are living on [the] poverty line, those who die of hunger. Such an economic policy is no longer acceptable to humanity. The greatest task of a socialist politics lies therefore with the implementation of an alternative economic policy, one based not on profit but on the fairer redistribution of wealth.”49

  Because so much of the Rojava economy has had to be devoted to war, the cantons have not been able to move very quickly towards a democratic, cooperative and ecologically sound form of economic development. For this reason, one cannot say for sure what form such development will take. But a conference on Democratic Economy held in Van, Turkey, in November 2014, provided a fascinating glimpse of the combination of visionary and practical thinking that has been going on to integrate women’s needs into every section of the economic program—“Women” actually was the first section in the document that contained the decisions of the Conference. The first three proposals under that heading were extraordinary for their forthright depiction of women’s lives and the need for change. The first stated that the male-dominated capitalist economy made women invisible and called for a new conceptual framework and a change in language to allow women to see themselves as part of the economic structure. The next two decisions declared that:

  •A campaign needs to be organized to counter the governmental social policies that put women into the position of having to take care of the disabled, the elderly, and children under conditions of underpaid and undocumented work without any social security. This struggle must be undertaken on the grounds of international agreements.

  •Women must be able to participate in all decision-making processes regarding local resources. Urban spaces must be planned with an aim to ease the lives of women, the disabled, and children. Not just parks but all common life spaces must be transformed in accordance with women’s perspectives, and women-focused cities need to be swiftly brought into existence.50

  The Rojava Women’s Council began implementing these goals by founding shelters for women who were being abused, where they could be physically safe and learn how to become economically self-sufficient. Workplaces that employed women were required to operate nurseries for babies and small children; women received three mo
nths’ paid maternity leave plus two hours off per day for nursing or childcare. Sewing workshops were set up for women in the refugee camps in Rojava so they could earn money.51

  As women’s economic needs were given a central place in economic planning, so were their needs for justice and defense against violence. The asayish—the local police force largely made up of women—was seen as the main way to manage the need for peace and justice on the community level. One of its main tasks—framed in terms of self-defense—was dealing with cases of violence against women, including such issues as child marriage and polygamy, both illegal. The asayish proceeded on the basis of complaints, most of which came from housewives. An asayish member in Cizire explained that “as soon as a complaint is received, the force begins an investigation into the man in question and a process of one-on-one communication and support with the woman survivor.”52

  In Turkey, women in the Kurdish youth movement—the Union of Patriotic Revolutionary Young Women (YDG-K)—had their own, somewhat more confrontational method of dealing with violence against women, as the Kurdish women’s news agency JINHA reported in September 2015: “For four years, C. A.’s husband I. A. has physically and psychologically abused her. C. A. then applied to the YDG-K. The women warned her husband several times to stop his behavior. The women of YDG-K then beat him until he promised that he would never abuse his wife. The women of YDG-K called on all women suffering from violence to apply to them, and noted that they struggle to protect their fellow women.”53

  Asayish members in Rojava went through a training process that was primarily ideological. As described by Nazan Ustundag, it involved topics such as “women’s history and liberation, Middle Eastern history, the history of Kurdistan, the state, truth, and diplomacy. Far from being only conceptual, the lessons are also practical, involving enactments of life in nature and scarcity whereby students are brought to the outdoors and taught to live without electricity and food. Self-reflexivity and criticism constitute another important part of the lessons: people are invited to collectively contemplate their desires for power, revenge, and conformity. Once asayiş members take their posts, they are expected to perform an ethics of equality with people and not make themselves too present in their lives. There are a number of cases where complaints by the public led certain asayiş members to be punished. Punishment involves more education . . .”54 Here as in other areas of policy, the goal is not to set up a punishing quasi-state but to enable the community to reach for both justice and unity.

  People’s Protection Unit (YPG) campfire outside grain silos after capture of Tel Hamis, Cizire Canton, Rojava.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Battle of Kobane and Its Backlash

  ROJAVA’S RADICAL, transformational vision of social change in the Middle East was bound to be seen as a threat by conservatives, including Kurdish and Syrian Islamists and nationalists, Barzani’s KDP in Iraq, and, of course, Turkey. As long as no one in the international community noticed the existence of the Rojava Kurds, the war on them was primarily military and could be left to Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra, abetted by Turkey. All this changed with the battle of Kobane.

  The battle of Kobane lasted from the spring of 2014 until January 2015, completely destroying the town, and drawing international attention for the first time to the liberated Rojava cantons and their women’s militias. It also brought US bombers into the Syrian war, though not until after much of Kobane had been destroyed and the Kurdish militias had lost hundreds of fighters. The YPG-YPJ’s defeat of Daesh was made more exquisite by the fact that so many of the victorious Kurdish fighters were women—apparently Daesh members believe that if they are killed by a female, they will not be able to immediately proceed to paradise and their allotted 72 virgins.1

  Until the Syrian uprising and the war that followed, Kobane had a population of perhaps 200,000, but it grew much larger after 2012 due to an influx of refugees. Before the war, 90 percent of the population was Kurdish, but the city of Kobane has about a hundred outlying villages and the population in some is made up of Sunni Arabs who were settled there by the Assad regime to fragment Kurdish territory.2

  As the central of the three Rojava cantons—Afrin is quite far to the west, and Cizire to the east—Kobane was of key importance to the future of Rojava. If Daesh succeeded in capturing it, Kobane would be cut off from contact with the other two cantons and the dream of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would be dead.

  Daesh wanted Kobane for logistical reasons. It had already captured two other towns on the Turkish border, Jarabulus and Tal Abyad, but because Kobane lay between them, Daesh vehicles had to go 160 miles out of their way in order to travel between them.3 But once it started the battle, Daesh had to win or suffer an immense blow to its prestige. A Daesh victory over the Kurds in Kobane would show the strength of Islamism—both its ferociously violent version and the “moderate” nationalistic version of Turkish president Erdogan, who clearly hoped for a Kurdish defeat.

  Turkey’s objective was to prevent a strong contiguous Kurdish presence on its border that could give aid and comfort to Turkish Kurds. As the strategic consultants of the Soufan Group, a consulting firm specializing in security and intelligence, put it, “Given a choice between having the Islamic State or Kurdish groups along its border with Syria, Turkey would almost certainly choose the former.”4 Though Turkey was a member of NATO, many observers noted its accommodating attitude toward both Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra. Jihadis traveled freely through Turkey, where they were known to meet in certain coffeehouses; these coffeehouses were never raided by police. Foreign fighters were allowed to cross the border into Syria in large numbers. Daesh moved large quantities of military supplies through Turkey as well. Besides allowing Daesh fighters and supplies to regularly cross the border into Syria, Turkey set up a program to offer wounded Daesh and al-Nusra fighters treatment in private hospitals.5

  Daesh first attacked Kobane in March 2014, after driving Jabhat al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army out of the area. This left Kobane surrounded by Daesh on three sides with the fourth side being Turkey. The combined People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units (YPG-YPJ) turned back the first attacks, but on July 2, Daesh began a concerted assault, using thermal missiles and heavy artillery they had captured from the Iraqi Army in Mosul. They also had Humvees, night vision goggles, M-16 rifles, and at least one $4 million tank, not to mention a seemingly unlimited supply of jihadis. In fact, Daesh had so many weapons they were able to fire three thousand mortar rounds at Kobane over a period of four days in July.6

  Because none of the Western powers were willing to supply the Syrian Kurds with weapons, the YPG-YPJ had only vintage Russian Kalashnikovs bought on the black market, handmade grenades, and tanks they put together out of construction vehicles and pick-up trucks. They had only 500 soldiers, many young and inexperienced.7

  On July 6, the Association of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) called for a general mobilization of Kurds to come to Kobane. Daesh had cut the power lines and water supply and Turkey was not letting food through. It was essential to break the Turkish embargo. As Daesh mounted heavy coordinated assaults on villages near Kobane, Turkey dug trenches ten feet wide on its side of the border to stop refugees from getting in and supplies and volunteers from getting out.8

  The citizens of Rojava were trying to help themselves. In Cizire canton, the Qamishli people’s council had organized a water supply by digging wells, and neighborhood communes, each covering several streets, had begun to acquire commercial generators capable of producing ten hours of electricity a day. Kobane tried similar methods of popular mobilization to cope with the siege. Their most serious problem was health care. They had converted an old building into a 210-bed hospital but, as Enver Muslim, president of the Kobane canton, explained, “we have no tomography, endoscopy, X-ray, or MR machines. We have no incubators for new-born babies who need them. We do not have the medical equipment to treat the injured. We are facing serious medicine shortages.”9


  They also had no construction materials or equipment to repair roads and buildings. Nevertheless, they dug eighteen wells in the West Kobane village of Qeynter Oxan, laid 320 meters of pipe to bring water into the city, and bought generators for every street. They grew some fruits and vegetables, peanuts, and cotton, but they badly needed more food as well as supplies.10

  Turkish Kurds were determined to help. The HDP, the pro-Kurdish party in Turkey’s parliament, immediately began to hold solidarity events to raise money for food and supplies, and to try to find ways to get them into Kobane. In the second week of July, they managed to send seven trucks of sugar, milk, rice, dates, olive oil, bulgur wheat, pasta, and other food.11 On July 19, the second anniversary of the liberation of Kobane, thousands of Turkish Kurds massed at the border and stormed the fence. Despite the army’s use of tear gas and water cannons, at least one thousand broke through.12 By one means or another, they moved about three tons of food and medical supplies into Kobane during the rest of the month, and two new brigades formed with volunteers from all over Kurdistan.

  The Daesh assault became a brutal siege. At the end of July, Meryam Kobane, commander of the local Women’s Defense Forces, described the situation to Özgür Gündem, a sympathetic Turkish paper: “There is no trade. Nothing comes from outside and nothing goes outside. This is a war in its own right. Forcing people to migrate by depriving them of work and bread is a special kind of war. It is the most merciless road to surrender.”13

  Until August 2014, the siege of Kobane had gone almost unnoticed by world media, but after Daesh attacked the Yazidis on Sinjar Mountain and the YPG-YPJ rescued thousands of refugees, reporters began to pay attention. Once Western journalists arrived, Turkey was embarrassed into opening the border, at least long enough to let 45,000 refugee Kurds in. Three hundred crossed in the other direction to help defend Kobane.14