Experiment in self-rule in Rojava

The now autonomous (and multi-cultural) territory of Rojava is attempting localised, egalitarian government in Kurdish regions won back from ISIS in northern Syria.

byMireille Court& Chris Den Hond

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JPEG - 157.4 kb — Displaced Syrians at a camp near Manbij look for safety in territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces
Delil Souleiman · AFP · Getty

We arrived at night, but the heat in Qamishli was still oppressive. As soon as we left the city’s small airport, still under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers and police, we entered the territory of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, or Rojava (‘west’ in Kurdish). At least two million people (60% Kurds) live here on land reclaimed by force from ISIS. The territory, along Turkey’s southern border, is bounded by the Euphrates and Iraq.

Since 2014, Syrians living here have been part of a political experiment inspired by Abdullah Öcalan, founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), imprisoned by Turkey since 1999. The PKK and its Syrian ally, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), abandoning Marxism-Leninism, have taken inspiration for over a decade from the libertarian communalism of the American environmentalist Murray Bookchin (1921-2006). Rojava’s foundational text, the Social Contract for the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. was adopted in 2014. It rejects nationalism and advocates an egalitarian society with equal representation, and respect for minority rights.

Rojava is now de facto autonomous. Apart from the tiny Damascus-controlled enclaves of Al-Hasakah and Qamishli airport, the region is run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) and contingents from Sunni Arab, Yezidi and Christian militias.

There are huge YPG flags at Qamishli’s many checkpoints, where the (autonomous) Rojava police carefully inspect vehicles. Suicide attacks by jihadists are a permanent threat; an attack on 27 July 2016 killed 44 people and injured 140. And Qamishli’s dark streets contrast with the bright lights of the Turkish cities of Nusaybin and Mardin just over the border.

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Mireille Court& Chris Den Hond

Mireille Court is a coordinating member of Solidarité Kurdistan; Chris Den Hond is a journalist and filmmaker. They co-edited (with Stephen Bouquin)La Commune du Rojava: L’alternative kurde à l’Etat-nation(The Rojava Commune: The Kurdish alternative to the nation state), Critica-Syllepse, Brussels/Paris, 2017.

Translated by George Miller

(1) An English translation is available at civiroglu.net/the-constitution-of-the-rojava-cantons/.

(2) Abdullah Öcalan, ‘Democratic Confederalism’.

(3) Press release, 31 July 2017.

(4) ‘Syria: “We had nowhere to go” — Forced displacement and demolitions in northern Syria’, Amnesty International, London, 13 October 2015.

(5) ‘Syria: Abuses in Kurdish-run Enclaves’, Human Rights Watch, New York, 18 June 2014.

(6) ‘Human rights abuses and international humanitarian law violations in the Syrian Arab Republic, 21 July 2016-28 February 2017’, United Nations Human Rights Council, Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, Geneva, 10 March 2017.

(7) See Vicken Cheterian, ‘The destruction of the Yezidis’,Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, January 2017.