Submitted by conseil in Rojava

We come from different countries, different political structures and different social backgrounds. We are youths, workers, students, outbreakers, oppressed, strugglers and autonomous. We are militants and soldiers. We are democrats, socialists and anti-capitalists, libertarians, anti-sexists and ecologists. We are anti-fascists. We are anarchists and communists, we are revolutionaries and internationalists, we are Apoists. We have been in armies, factories, universities, on farms, construction sites, in schools or workless. We have been living in squats, in barracks, in neighbourhoods, on farms, on the street, in autonomous areas or travelling around. We have worked, fought, been on welfare, lived illegally, survived and begged. We are longtime organized or newly politicized. We have struggled and suffered under Capitalist Modernity in different ways. We have lived different lives, been in different places around the world and have had different experiences.

The Revolution of Rojava though united all of us. We all share the same rejecting attitude against this system of suffering, injustice, oppression, exploitation and the enslavement of humanity and nature that destroys our lives. We share moral values and ethical principles, a strong sense for justice, a proud dignified attitude and that we don‘t accept to be supressed. We share our search for truth, our desire for freedom, our justified rage and the meaning that we give to life. We share the consistency and decisivness to stand and fight for our convictions. And we share that we have not given up hope and will not surrender. Because like Serok Apo said: „To insist on socialism means to insist on humanity.“

The Rojava Revolution gives not only hope to the people of Northern-Syria/Western-Kurdistan but the unconditional struggle for freedom of the Kurdish people and the revolutionary upbuilding process of an egalitarian and libertarian society in the middle of the current chaos in Syria and the Middle East inspires and encourages people all around the world. The heroic resistance of the YPG and YPJ (People‘s Protection Units and Women‘s Protection Units) against the murderous gangs of the so called „Islamic State“ made them known worldwide. And the beauty and strenght of their ethical-aestethical struggle for people‘s self organising and women‘s liberation made them a symbol for revolutionary hope.

The YPG was founded in 2011 during the social uprisings in Syria against the repressive Assad regime in face of an upcoming civil war. On one hand YPG/YPJ were founded to protect the Kurdish people in their inhabitant areas from the aggressive threats of Islamist gangs like in the beginning Ahrar al-Sham, Al-Nusra, (the Syrian wing of Al-Qaida) or later ISIS, which in terms of the civil war intended to take over territorry in Syria and Iraq to implement a radical-islamic caliphate by extinguishing, displacing and suppressing the Kurdish, Ezîdî, Assyrian and other peoples in the region. On the other hand to intervene into the arising intervall of political chaos, liberate and defend Rojava, the occupied Kurdish part in the North of the country, in which the population was since decades oppressed by the Arab nation state and build up on women‘s equal rights and ecology based democratic-confederal system without a state that Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan developed in his new paradigm for the Kurdish Liberation Movement in terms of establishing a self-organized society based on freedom and equality.

The People‘s Protection Units though it began as 70-80 brave Kurdish youths, because of their small number organized in mobile teams with precarious equipment, sometimes only armed with a stick, who started to put up checkpoints on the streets to secure their area. The first fights which broke out were against Islamist gangs like the FSA, Ahrar al-Sham or Al-Nusra which tried to take control over the Kurdish areas. Şehid Xebat Dêrik was the one in charge of creating Kurdish self-defense forces for Rojava. It was his work to build up the people‘s army which today is about 60.000 fighters which grew out of the roughly 70-80 members of the youth organization. In 2012 he was martyred by counter-revolutionary forces inside Rojava. YPG is his legacy. On January 1, 2013 the autonomy of Rojava got declared officially and the revolution was made public to the world. Since it‘s first day the revolution was in war – mainly against the so called „Islamic State“ which attacked and took control over big parts of Rojava. Though the YPG and YPJ fought a determined resistance struggle and at the very latest since the war of Kobanê in 2014 and 2015 the world came to know about the Kurds defeating the Islamist terrorist gangs of ISIS, fighting for their autonomy and democracy. Even already before but increasingly during and after the Battle of Kobane many Internationals came to Rojava to be part of the revolution, protect the Kurdish people and join the fight against ISIS. So in 2015 YPG International with an own tabur and own academy was founded for all the international volunteers who before were spread in different units and different places.

“Solidarity ist the tenderness oft the peoples”. – Che Guevara

We are internationalists. Internationalism is organizing. It is a tactic and a strategy but most important – it is a spirit. Being part of the international revolutionary movement means to not be bound to our nations but to go there where the revolution needs us. It means to unite beyond the borders of the rulers. It connects us and our struggle today with the continuing line of socialist revolutions and libertarian movements in history. Coming nowadays to Kurdistan and fighting against Turkish fascism and for the revolution of the Kurdish Freedom Movement means to put ourselves in one line with all the internationalist revolutionaries in history. With the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War in ‘36, the antifascist partizans in the 40s in Europe, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution in the 50s and their army of internationalists in Africa and South-America in the 60s and 70s. With all the comrades who joined anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist liberation movements like many did in the 70s and 80s in Palestine, with the City Guerilla groups and with the Kurdish Freedom Movement which is with a Turk and a Laz being the first two comrades of Abdullah Öcalan also an internationalist movement since the beginning. With all the sincere and brave humans that left their home, their family and friends to join the resistance against the injustice of this world, all the determined internationalists who left their homeland to fight there where the revolution needed them, all the militants that gave up a comfortable life to dedicate their life to the struggle. With all the Şehîds.

Today Kurdistan is the heart of the revolution of our epoch. For that the revolution can one day also succeed in all our home countries it is today necessary to defend it here on it‘s source, in Kurdistan. Like so many internationalist revolutionaries did before in history – we will go where the revolution needs us. That is the essence of internationalism. The revolution of Rojava and the Kurdish people are with the invasion of the Fascist Turkish state in Afrîn very threatened and they will probably face even harder upcoming attacks. Because of that all of us came together in YPG International. We came to learn, to help, to develope, to organize, to fight, to struggle, to defend. We came because of the hope, the perspectives and the alternative life that this struggle gives us. We came for the fight against injustice and because of the inspiring beauty and strength of the Kurdish people. We came to continue the path of all the internationalist Şehîds. We have defended Rojava against ISIS and Turkish Fascism and we are ready to defend all oppressed peoples of the Middle East and beyond. We are YPG International.

5

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.