Crimethinc: The Threat to Rojava: An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump’s Withdrawal
I’m writing from Rojava. Full disclosure: I didn’t grow up here and I don’t have access to all the information I would need to tell you what is going to happen next in this part of the world with any certainty. I’m writing because it is urgent that you hear from people in northern Syria […]
Rolling Stone, “The Untold Story of Syria’s Antifa Platoon”
I first met Karim Franceschi in November 2016, in the hills of northeastern Syria, at a remote compound everyone called the Academy. It was a former oil facility that had been turned into a training camp for the volunteers from the U.S. and Europe who were coming to battle the Islamic State with the Kurds. A […]
Independent, “I fought with the YPG and I’m upset by the patronising reaction to Anna Campbell’s death”
I have been called a ‘psycho’ and accused of having a death wish, but I have never been told that, like Anna who fought for the YPJ, my actions were naive. Last week, 26-year-old Anna Campbell was killed in Rojava, Syria, by advancing Turkish troops or their allied forces. She is the first British woman […]
Rolling Stone, “Inside America’s Secret War with ISIS”
The Kurds are no longer communists but adhere to a far-left, anarcho-feminist ideology closer to Occupy Wall Street than to anything in the Middle East. Their autonomy movement, known as the Rojava Revolution, has attracted leftist volunteers from six continents, but Turkey, under its increasingly authoritarian Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, is obsessed with preventing […]
The Intercept, “Is the Queer Brigade Fighting ISIS in Syria a Force for Liberation or Alienation?”
TQILA is a small unit within the International Revolutionary People’s Guerrilla Forces — a battalion of self-identified anarchist foreign fighters who traveled to support the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in their fight against ISIS. While some have questioned whether TQILA actually exists, the group has released several photos ostensibly from Raqqa, including one sending […]
Al Jazeera, “Decolonising Syria’s so-called ‘queer liberation'”
TQILA tells us that it was formed to fight “authority, patriarchy and oppressive heteronomativity, queer/homophobia and transphobia” and explains how “the images of gay men being thrown off roofs and stoned to death” by ISIL was something they “could not idly watch“. Their umbrella group, IRPGF, tells us that their role is “to be an armed […]
Haaretz, “Spanish Civil War’s Lesson for Israel, U.S.: Polarization, Incitement Paved Way to Hell”
The clash pitted capitalists against communists, monarchists against anarchists, conservatives vs. libertarians, fascists against democrats, religious fanatics against secular extremists, centralists against those who backed regional independence for Catalans, Basques and others. The tensions were fueled by the spread of Fascism and Communism, which undermined democracy and enabled each side to describe its enemy in […]
Los Angeles Times, “Warriors, dreamers and just plain crazy: U.S. civilian volunteers fighting Islamic State in Syria”
In his west Raqqah outpost, surrounded by snipers and the occasional armed drone, Howard said Western volunteers in Syria seem to fit into one of three groups: There are the anarchists and socialists, “the starry-eyed dreamers.” Then there are the “people that are running away from their past.” Finally, he said, there are the “people […]
The Guardian, “Fighting fascism: Americans in the Spanish civil war have a lesson for today”
A handful of leftwing activists have followed the Lincolns’ example to extremes, joining Syria’s civil war to defend Rojava, where anarchists have carved out a territory partly in the model of Catalonia in the 1930s. Continue Reading
Sputnik Radio, “The Only Anarchist Revolution in History”
As Brooklyn hipsters descend on Rojava to take part in a socialism-rooted, communal and ideological movement, Amir Taaki tells Double Down this is actually the first anarchist revolution in human history. Not only is the economy completely decentralized, but Amir recounts his time in the region as being one rich in cultural and communal experiences. Continue Reading