Turkey-Syria-Rojava: Ecologist, vegetarian anarchist warriors struggling in Kobane (tr)

An Anarchist Warrior From Tuzlucayir*to Kobane ---- We are sitting in the headquarters of 
United Freedom Forces in Kobane. I asked for a cigarette from the warrior sitting beside 
me just to meet and talk. While giving me the cigarette, I asked him which groups form 
United Freedom Forces. ---- He tells me it's formed of Kurtulus, MLSPB, TDP and 
Anarchists. Later on, he states that he's also an anarchist. ---- Then it goes on. ---- - 
What's the aim of the anarchists fighting in here? ---- - I'm one of the founders of the 
Social Rebellion. Also its speaker. When the attack of DAIS gangs had started, in the name 
of international solidarity, though not planning it all, we made idealizations to rise up 
the defense just like International Brigades did in the Spanish Civil War. ---- - United 
Freedom Forces is composed of various socialist fractions from Turkey. How did you involve 
with this structure as anarchists?

- When we came, United Freedom Forces had already been established. We
made our call to anarchists and ecologists as Social Rebellion.

- Do you have any anarchists out of Turkey fighting with you?

- Comrades from Italy, Spain came. Not in our group, but also an
Argentinian anarchist is fighting in YPG.

- When was Social Rebellion formed?

- Social Rebellion was formed in the resistance tents of Tuzlucayir in 2013.

- Why did you choose green black flag?

- We chose it both for the memory of Mahno's peasant brigades, and
with the effect of our being ecologist.

- What kind of an anarchist structure is Social Rebellion?

- We defend class war. We reject neoliberal anarchism. Mostly we have
classic anarchist Mahno[vist], Proudhonist comrades. In general our
understanding is platformist.

We can say social rebellion is like this: We did not just take
Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Luigi Galleani, Malatesta just as it is.
We reviewed all anarchists. We put our own idea. We said 'we are
social insurrectionist'.

- When did you begin armed struggle?

- During our establishment we were already defending armed struggle.
Especially we were affected from the insurrectionist anarchism views
of Alfredo M. Bonanno. We'll establish our own rebellion theory. We
believe that revolution will begin with armed struggle. First 3-5 gun
actions in ghettos.. Then Okmeydani*etc. it took us to Kobane. We have
bombs, Kalashs, Bixis in our hands. At the moment we are at this
point. But before that we dreamed... If we didn't dream, if we didn't
try to realize it, we might be drinking in a bar in Kadikoy or
Beyoglu. Some of our comrades kept on that way.

- How is the attitude of Kurdish Movement in Kobane towards you?

- To a point, our existence in here is to exhibit to the comrades that
armed activities of anarchists did not end with the Spanish Civil War.
In the beginning, socialist, Apoist comrades in here got surprised
with armed anarchists. In minds such a perception had been created. In
fact people in here do not know about anarchism. They know it as
something against everything, against organization. Kropotkin has a
nice motto, "Anarchy is order". We are telling. We also claim
responsibility for this. No matter how hard the responsibility is, we
are trying to get over it.

- In what sense the theory of ecologist anarchism coincide with the
actual practice in here?

- In here we've experienced things that we were puzzled how to act, we
couldn't find in books.

- What for example?

- There is a military war in here. We do reject hierarchy but for e.g.
in here you should have a team leader. You cannot give a two-way radio
to everyone or none should act freely by himself/herself. Maybe being
natural creates its own leaders. We have conceived things in here,
guiding from Malatesta, natural leadership from Bakunin, those of
which we failed to understand before by reading.

There was knowledge, we have practiced this knowledge and gained
knowledge again.

- What were you dreaming before you came, what did you find?

- I was thinking about having problems related with command
[hierarchy] but I didn't. Neither in YPG nor in United Freedom Forces,
I didn't face with oppression, force. In tense moments of the war, a
few comrades have shouted [at us] while bullets were passing over our
heads, but it may happen.

- Didn't you have problems about ecology?

- There was such an orientalist viewpoint in the people who came here
with the idea that there was a need of consciousness and we came here
for that. For e.g. comrades from Italy came to bring organic
agriculture. Already there exist people doing it, they know what it
is. Comrades are talking about ecology. A Spanish comrade of ours
insisted on that 'fire should not be burned with diesel fuel'. You are
in somewhere where diesel fuel is 7 kurus [about 2,65 US cents]. Wood
is more expensive. Actually you cannot find it, generally it's desert.
There are olive trees, but they are in the fields used for
agriculture. You cannot cut them. It is nonsense to tell these people
that 'do not heat with diesel fuel, why are you using diesel?'.

- Your socialist comrades from United Freedom Forces told that you
opposed to eat meat, then asked them to excuse from the animals which
were cut, and when it was a necessity it was you who ate much of that.
Can you tell about that?

- Something happened in the mountain. Supplies did not come. We got
hungry; there was nothing around except those ducks left by the
peasants. When the comrades wanted to cut the ducks, I said 'this is
murder what are you doing?'. I said this just as a reflex breaking
with the reality. It was our reality. Things we did just through
theory fell apart in here.

- In the same group you fight together with socialists, did you have
theoretical discussions?

- Even if we have, it is just in a way of joking. We didn't have any
problems. They are aware of it, we are aware of it. In here we are
aware that we came here for international solidarity. Both we and
other comrades do act in the sense of revolutionary ethics. We sleep
side by side, we eat together. We are trying to understand each other.
Maybe we need a new revolutionary theory in the 21st century, maybe
this practice puts something in it. In the sense of understanding each
other.

- Certainly you might have had times you came close to death, you got
scared. What comes to your mind at these moments?

- Sure I had. However when adrenalin rises up in the front line, you
think about your comrade. Maybe on guard, there are moments of fear
and panic but when you hear a gun fire that panic disappears. I mean
you do develop a reflex to defend yourself or your comrade.

- What's this cola box?

- Don't touch! Handmade grenade.


*[ Trans.Note: Tuzlucayir (Ankara) and Okmeydani (Istanbul) are
working-class neighborhoods in which mostly left-wing people live. ]

[ Turkish original:
http://jiyan.org/2015/06/28/tuzlucayirdan-kobaneye-uzanan-bir-anarsist-savasci/
]