Anarchic update news all over the world 10.08.2017

Today's Topics:

   
1.  the coming anarchy: Echos of Hiroshima - SARTHAK
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  ANARCHIST FEDERATION OF ROSARIO: Extract from the fAu
      analysis specifically on Venezuela and Bolivia. (ca, fr, it, pt)
      [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  Libertarian Space Paraná added an event. -- TO 100 YEARS OF
      THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION (ca) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  Chile: Repression and Revolt in Venezuela (ca, pt)
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
5.  MEDIA, In Rojava, a Kurdish anarchist collective led by
      women is at the heart of the fight with ISIS, and behind a
      political upheaval putting equality front and centre. (ca, fr,
      it, pt) [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1




On this date, seventy-two years ago, the United States of America turned thousands of 
thinking, living, breathing human beings into ash. Millions more were to be the object of 
unspeakable horrors of after effects of the fallout that followed. ---- Almost all of us 
now know, at least the bare minimum of what the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and later 
Nagasaki meant for the people and the land. But it is seen only as an article with 
historic importance which has no more relevance to our lives today than, say, the French 
Revolution. For the people of this nation, which stood on the brink of a nuclear "war" 
(there are no nuclear wars, only nuclear annihilations) with Pakistan in 1990, this 
perception could not be any more further from the truth. The situation in 1990 was 
objectively more critical than the Cuban Missile Crisis. We still live under the shadow of 
what happened on the morning of 6th August 1945 in Hiroshima.

The movie below depicts the plausible scenario of a nuclear exchange between NATO forces 
and USSR in 1980's from the point of view of a young couple living in Sussex, England. The 
level of response by authorities in England in 1980s is in some measures comparable with 
what India's would be today. But in many other respects India is far worse prepared for a 
nuclear exchange or even a nuclear accident. In India the medical response will be far 
worse, the food distribution almost nil and radioactive water more abundant.

I do not wish to recall the facts of what happened on that shameful day in Hiroshima here. 
I rather want to bring the readers attention to the unspeakable human suffering, and 
catastrophic effect on the planet that sustains us, caused by nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons should not be seen as means of security, but rather as a sickness that 
infects this planet. This sickness will sooner or later catch us all. They violate all 
humanitarian laws and quash the prospect of peace in the world. Nuclear weapons must be 
abolished if we want to do justice to the victims of Hiroshima and to the future 
generations that will inhabit this planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK8zNw6ONuk

For: Bhopal Peace and Eco-Justice Action Committee

Indian Anarchist Federation awaits its Comrades!

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Message: 2




 From April 28, 2017, an anarchist act prior to May 1st. ---- More when a certain popular 
discontent with the government is capitalized largely by the right. For that right that 
wants to remove the achievements achieved, those that are ultimately the fruit of popular 
demands and struggles. ---- The social situation in effervescence of Venezuela we have 
every day in the media, with half or false information and also with honest information 
from independent press. The subject does not give any position in black and white. But 
here we will emphasize only some aspects that seem to us of interest beyond all the hype 
there is. ---- There are constant and interested references of many scribes; Of the 
fundamental means of communication; Of a whole structure of the right that everything bad 
happens in Latin America, is tried to explain with external conspiracy theses, especially 
what refers to countries where it governs the progressivism, more if it is Ecuador, 
Bolivia or Venezuela.

That is why it is convenient to add here even a few lines that consider this topic. It is 
clear that many governments, intellectuals and left-wing activists have resorted to 
conspiracy theory to account for progressives, failures, betrayals to popular postulates, 
governmental administrative incapacity, corruption, taking away social movements in favor 
Of alliances with powerful rights, or to diminish or nullify real social participation. 
These and other factors have produced high discontent in the popular grassroots that 
supported progressive governments. That the right forces stimulated and supported by the 
empire take maximum advantage of such social opportunities is not at all strange, for that 
they are. But what should not confuse anyone is that this conspiratorial use to justify 
horrors committed does not nullify the fact of the existence of permanent imperial action. 
There are two problems that must be clearly separated, the demagoguery or the excuses of 
progressives and allies, and the solid and constant presence of the empire through its 
various tentacles.

There is no doubt that penetration for the purpose of control and domination by part of 
the empire is systematic and carried out by different organisms that play different roles. 
Notwithstanding these specific roles there is coordination and complementarity between 
them. If we consider that we are before a power that wants to continue dominating the 
world and that its interests and orders are accepted, and that especially relies on the 
force for it, it would be naive to think that this spectrum of organisms that try to 
assure this imperial orientation did not exist. They have a regular task that they carry 
out every day of the year with exuberant technical and economic means. We will now refer 
to a part of it. We will take what is most closely related to the military in the first place.
We have that there are concrete references and denunciations that there are silently or 
half-quietly deployed US military forces throughout Central and South America. The 
militarization of the national police forces has been a direct task with some camouflage. 
The DEA and Foreign Support Advisory Team (FAST) ... arrived in Honduras to train a unit 
and assist in the local police narcotics plan and execute operations. These operations 
were difficult to differentiate from military missions. They then covered more countries. 
According to the New York Times, five "command-type squadrons" of FAST teams have been 
deployed throughout Central America to train and support local counter-narcotics units. 
Counter-narcotics? Do not tell me.
The deployment of this type of combination of military, paramilitary, and militarized 
police is indicative of the US strategy for re-militarization of the region. Instead of 
military occupation, he simply states, Washington "provides assistance" in the form of 
military aid.
In 2013, it was reported that former US Special Operations Command Commander William 
McRaven "made the decision to deploy[Special Operations Forces]to different countries 
without consulting the ambassadors in those countries or even the Command "In fact, the 
deployment of Special Forces troops, Mc Raven reached more than 65,000, many spread 
throughout Latin America."
At the same time we have that the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) 
created by Obama in 2011 received more than 2.5 trillion dollars for its objectives. It is 
known that massive funding has been channeled mainly through military and paramilitary 
programs.
The United States Army has further strengthened its position in establishing cooperation 
between NATO and Colombia. Perhaps this is an inevitable part of imperialism. Perhaps it 
is indicative of the waning influence of an Empire and its desperate attempt to recover 
the lost spheres of influence. Whatever one interprets their motives, the US is 
unequivocally consolidating its military power in Latin America within its power strategy.
Simultaneously, the US has multiplied military bases in the region, adding seven new bases 
in Colombia in the last period. Also in Paraguay, where the United States became involved 
to support the coup dubbed as "institutional."
But the imperial penetration is not only in the military, with its CIA at the head, it is 
also in the "cultural" through its globalized media, transformed into powerful 
ideological-political apparatuses, designers, who manufacture notions favorable to the 
system , Discredit for its enemies and, by the way, a range of consumptions.
We have direct political threats from the top up such as: the Executive Order signed by 
Barack Obama in March 2015 in which Venezuela was declared an unusual and extraordinary 
threat to US national security. And now the threatening statements by the Chief of the 
Southern Command, Admiral Kurt W. Tidd (April 6, 2017), stating that the "humanitarian 
crisis" in Venezuela could force a regional response.
On the other hand, a number of NGOs, and other organizations, almost all claim to defend 
human rights, democracy and cultural issues (NED, USAID, IRI), for example. Precisely 
USAID mentioning the new Latin American situation requested for fiscal year 2017 to 
increase its budget for Venezuela by more than one million dollars, to a total of 5 
million 500 thousand, for, say: "to defend democratic practices, institutions and values 
that support Human rights, freedom of information and the participation of civil society 
". Pure generosity, no.
Venezuela and Bolivia two gravitating experiences Certain peculiarities of their processes
Venezuela and Bolivia are two experiences that have special peculiarities within the 
framework of progressive governments. It is interesting to keep in mind these experiences 
that have their originality and seal of the context in which they are developed. Themes 
such as Popular Power and Good Living.
Of course they have all the limitations of policies made from the capitalist state, driven 
and digitized from there, from above. They also contain aspects that are well worth 
reviewing since they raise some issues that from another approach and other dynamics are 
of importance. On the other hand they question us, they challenge us in producing a 
proposal of independent social-political action that keeps adequate call with the interest 
of the bottom in the progress of a process of rupture.
In the Venezuelan case, the Popular Power and Communes project had important popular 
participation and support. But they depended fundamentally on the top, on mechanisms and 
state bureaucracy. The locks were many for an in-depth self-management development. So 
much so that Chavez, shortly after winning the October presidential election, publicly 
criticized his cabinet for not pushing that model enough. It was at the time of the 
sentence: "Commune or nothing, or else, what do we do here?" He asked during a council of 
ministers in which he commissioned his dolphin Nicolas Maduro to promote "popular power." 
But momentum remained limited and bureaucratic control over it increased.
What was said was a commune. There are long explanations. We try here, briefly, just to 
give a general idea. Theoretically it was a popular political organization, based on the 
principles of cooperation, which through delegates made their own decisions. Here, they 
are usually organized by community councils, which are smaller, more local organizations 
that are making their policies according to the needs they have in their localities. A 
Commune comprises communal Councils.
The communes would allow solving common problems and needs, sharing land, cultural assets, 
housing needs. Integration with other nearby communities facilitates solving major 
problems such as the need to build bridges or infrastructure, bring water or electricity 
to an area, and other decisions that would normally be beyond the reach of a communal council.
There are about 500 Communes in the country in 2012. In each one, spokespersons 
(spokespersons) chosen by the communal councils of each neighborhood together with other 
groups (cultural, sports, union associations ...) of that territory, usually a small city 
or an area of a big city
In their definitions they establish that they do not have as purpose to generate riches 
and particular profits, but to generate a social benefit. The communes are seen in this 
conception enunciated as the essence of popular power.
An example that graphs the operation of a Commune is the Ataroa case, it gathers fifty 
communal councils of the south of Barquisimeto (the fourth largest city of Venezuela) and 
other social groups, and where, among other small companies, Formed a brick that provides 
material to the works that are made in those neighborhoods. Also the commune has assumed 
the management of an urban transport system with eight buses; Of a television, Lara TV. An 
active member of this Commune adds that people naturally solve their problems but that 
"the experience has not been free of internal and external problems, struggles to hoard 
some power, bureaucracy, and conflict with other State institutions."
Despite many difficulties in its operation some analysts consider that the system of 
Communes would not be easily reversible in the event of a change of government. It would 
be the problem of the management of the services that these have assumed and that the 
state had never lent there. Not in vain, some of these people had no identity card or 
rights of any kind, health care or education. Yes, there may be some of this, plus 
everything that has been formed on the level of subjectivity that effective action produced.
Precisely the problem that interests us a lot in relation to this experience is what 
imaginary produced, what degree of empowerment, what social-political capacity brought you 
active participation, what hopes and dreams were recorded. No doubt, a large part of the 
people did not have a passive participation in this process. From these places may arise 
the hope of building an independent political action and that truly go deep with the needs 
and aspirations of the popular movement.
In total, the Federal Governing Council allocated between 18% and 25% of GDP, from oil 
revenues, to civil society initiatives, organized in communal councils or through 
traditional institutions (mayors) and Governorates. A few years ago, when oil was at 100 
or more dollars, this was a lot of money. Today this has changed substantially. Despite 
all the bureaucratic limitations and being in the bosom of a capitalist state it was a 
curious and original experience there is no doubt. But, logically, it went through a 
process of tensions and contradictions between the capitalist state and the developing 
People's Power.
This contradiction between the existing capitalist state with Bolivarian government and 
the Popular Power under construction was increasing. A process that dragged on for more 
than a decade and a half. Where there are few major changes in an economy based on oil 
revenue. Far from an economy focused on achieving a type of production that ensures 
greater autonomy and well-being.
The following quote was theorized from Bolivarian stores. "The challenge of building 
socialism in the 21st century forces us to creatively rethink ways of conceiving this 
relationship between the People's Power Network and the State, so that we do not make 
mistakes again historically known. To erroneously define this relationship would mean, on 
the one hand, that the State ends up kidnapping the popular will; On the other hand, to 
establish relations of representation that dilute the creativity, initiative and 
participatory power of the people. In short, to reduce power to the great social changes 
that are being promoted, and that we must continue to drive in the years to come. Many of 
those mistakes that were feared were just what quickly gained ground. The state 
institutionalism was the concern by far fundamental and the one of the popular power was 
in a very second background. However, there were those who believed that from that 
capitalist structure that is the state could develop a popular power with true autonomy. . 
This at most was a declaration of good intentions.
The Popular Power was in increasing tension with the institutions of the State, with its 
bureaucracy, with its centralist dynamics, with its tendency to control and subordinate 
current policies. He was relegated and increased his weakness and dependence.
The proposal of Hugo Chávez, which at times was expressed was: to carry out from the State 
through a series of measures and mechanisms the popular empowerment. Trying that the state 
was losing power in favor of this form of popular organization. That is, a statelessness 
that operates against its own future. A state that decides to go extinct. The opposite of 
what has historically been the dynamics and logic of the state. This was, in medium term 
terms, an "impossible mission". Shortly before his death, Chavez criticized this process 
that saw growing and was contrary to People's Power. One opportunity is when he makes a 
quote from Kropotkin of a letter to Lenin. This is in the statement of FAU when the death 
of Chavez.
The empowerment of the people from above, once again, proved that it was not possible. 
Then came the predictable tensions, plans that were locked; Finances that did not arrive, 
bureaucracies that controlled to their discretion certain projects; Co-optations of 
"cadres" of the popular power to integrate them to the State; Corruption promoted by 
bureaucrats; Sabotage of the "bourgeoisie" and traditional bourgeoisie to projects that 
did not suit them. Alliances with anti-people bourgeoisie and even agreements with 
predatory oil companies and identified with the empire.
They add, to facts of this type, those who from official spheres promoted the Popular 
Power: "being on a determined territory, a government that emanates from the bottom up and 
that little by little this new institutional form, which is multiplying along And width of 
the country (the target is three thousand communes by 2019), wherever the power resides 
and becomes the new space through which regulates the daily life of the people. It means 
replacing the state, with this looking at how life is going, and installing, within a 
framework of capitalist structure, built with tools of the system, a new organizational 
form of society. All without confrontation of rupture. Nothing about the eye. Intentions 
aside, a fantasy world.
This type of approach, taking the state through government, and installing the future 
society is still sustained today. Intellectuals and politicians defined as the left base 
it with long, contradictory and confused theories. It has been possible to read statements 
that do the impossible to save the conception that the current society can be changed from 
the capitalist state. The state appears, in such circumstances, as having with complete 
independence the capacity to regulate everything that is necessary and to put limits to 
the power. They invent a state that is not articulated and in interrelationship with an 
economy, an ideology, with great means of communication in the hands of the power, with a 
whole legal reproductive structure. More than a political theory this is already a 
fantasy. That animal does not exist.
Our identification always with the struggle of peoples who seek their political destiny, 
regardless of bourgeois states and parties. Against all interference and imperialist 
intervention. We affirm once again: for the self-determination of the Venezuelan people 
and of all peoples. It is well known already, in this capitalist world, the power that 
comes from above is not popular. If the people do not exercise the power, then this does 
not really exist in the town. The People's Power is created every day exercising, if not 
exercised does not exist. The Popular Power built as a process and as a social dynamic 
necessarily collides with the existing structure of privileges. With a capitalist 
structure, an entire reproductive institutionality, different ideological circuits, A 
society divided into classes where a small minority oppresses and exploits a large 
majority. Precisely to that majority in which the People's Power must be based.
We want to point out something. The analysis of the above, of government policies, should 
not negate an analysis of what may have happened in the below. The "plebeian" world was 
active, had experiences, had experiences that do not necessarily have to be identified 
with the process of progressives at the level of government. What happened in the 
imaginary of our towns in these more than 15 years? Is the people perhaps an "empty 
organism" that does not add its own or that which passes through it without modifying it 
in any way? Do not certain processes of subjectivation occur? Is not fighting and 
participation good teachers?
The peoples were active not only electorally. In all these processes that were, in which 
he participated, surely new elements were added to him, new notions. It mobilized, won the 
streets, was repressed and murdered, believed in "progressive" proposals, supported 
electorally governments that he thought brought the new proposal. He had political 
disappointments and continued to believe in changing needs. There was all that and more. 
It was there not only as a totally passive element. Do not confuse or underestimate your 
current subjective state.
There is already a political question for this moment. In what situation are the remains 
of these progressive governments today, are they reaching the end of their path? For how 
long can they keep some expectation in the villages? What is the degree of disbelief they 
have already harvested? It is notorious today that this policy that we can say slightly 
produced "wear" with its popular support, is lurking to replace it a crude right that 
wants as quickly as possible to remove conquests that were ultimately popular 
achievements. This situation already in progress, with a breakthrough in a short time, is 
the example already of Brazil and Argentina, presents us with new problems.
Yes, a specific challenge. As parties and fronts, and the vast majority of their 
militancy, have been turning towards the center and even practices that were denounced as 
right, in opportunities with repression against popular demands. Yes, we know, it will not 
be easy to elaborate during the social-political action of a line itself and by the left. 
Own line that implies to have clarity in the analysis and to know to differentiate the 
different sectors and their different policies, friends and enemies, as well as the 
different political-social processes that are giving; To have rigor in the analysis to 
avoid falling into "everything is the same", discourse that can be related to the right or 
political skepticism. It is a challenge and it is the obligatory political task ahead.

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Message: 3





The revolution of the soviets from 1917 to 1921, teachings and consequences of their 
disappearance. ---- For this important date that defines the history of the twentieth 
century to our present time, we will have the presence of Frankie from France's Frank 
Mintz. ---- Frank Mintz (Montpellier, 1941) is a French anarcho-syndicalist historian and 
member of the Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs-Solidarité Ouvrière (CNT-SO). ---- 
He was born in Montpellier of a mother from Auvergne and from a stateless father (an 
immigrant from the USSR of Jewish-German and Russian origin). ---- Frank Mintz's writings 
are related to the history of anarcho-syndicalism during the Spanish social revolution of 
1936. He is also a translator (from Italian and Spanish into French) of works on this 
subject. He has written anthologies about important figures of anarchism like Camillo 
Berneri or Errico Malatesta.

Today he is retired after 34 years as a Spanish language teacher and takes advantage of 
his free time to continue and participate in the debates and currents of 
anarcho-syndicalism both in Europe and in Latin America.

In this particular case, Timepo has been working on the Free Soviets in the Russian 
Revolution and will present his research in a series of talks in Argentina and Brazil.

Lxs we wait, up fighting lxs!

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Message: 4





Repression and revolt in Venezuela: An outstretched hand for the compañerxs, a closed fist 
for the enemy ---- In Venezuela, mass protests against the socialist government of Nicolás 
Maduro have been developing for more than three months. ---- More than one hundred dead 
and hundreds of demonstrators detained and tortured at the hands of the Venezuelan police 
is the current balance of the street agitation that has dominated the political agenda in 
the Latin American region and even beyond. ---- The deepening social conflict in Venezuela 
has a number of interesting edges to address for those of us who are interested in 
spreading the hostilities against all forms of government and power. Among them, we can 
find at least two variables:

1-The hypocrisy of the democratic states that via the Organization of American States are 
calling for intervention in Venezuela due to "the serious violations of people's freedom" 
by the government. As if in their own territories, in states such as the US, Mexico, 
Colombia and Chile there exists freedom and respect for what they call "human rights" in 
the language of power.

2-The campaign of the international left in support of the government of Nicolás Maduro, 
that classifies the protesters as either simple puppets or agents that are beholden to the 
interests of the opposition, the mainly right-wing grouping of the Democratic Unity 
Roundtable (MUD).

Both discourses interact in the conflict trying to shape opinion regarding what takes 
place in Venezuela, inside and outside the borders of the country.

For us, what we think is important is to lend a hand of solidarity, even from a distance, 
to those anarchist / anti-authoritarian compañerxs who are taking part in the street 
clashes against the government.

Side by side with the thousands of young people who have risen up, anarchist compañerxs 
decided not to be spectators of what was happening right before their eyes and took 
offensive action against the police, their barracks and everything that smells of 
government and repression.

It is a fact that the revolt in general does not have a noticeable anti-state trajectory. 
It is also true that in the streets there is a diversity of positions and speeches. But it 
is also a concrete fact as has been noted by the anarchist compañerxs from Venezuela that 
the majority of the youth who go out to throw Molotov cocktails at the police and burn 
barracks and government buildings have no interest in being part of the Democratic Unity 
Roundtable of the right-wing official political opposition.

It is a rebellion that has been ongoing for more than three months whose ‘driving force' 
cannot be attributed to the right, being rather diverse and in many cases young people 
without any political party affiliations.

We feel an affinity with those who from the autonomy and the fire of the barricades and 
Molotov cocktails are spreading anti-state/anti-authoritarian ideas within the specific 
context of fighting against the present government.

In the territory devastated by the Chilean state, as anarchist compañerxs we have 
participated in massive manifestations of social movements over the recent decades that we 
have no great affinity with, always with the aim of seeking and generating possibilities 
to attack the police and propagate the destruction of the urban infrastructure of capital 
and power.

In our experience, we know than in the street we are not always fighting alongside people 
we are in complete affinity with, but yes we are clear when it comes to who our brothers, 
sisters and accomplices are with whom we share common goals to overcome the limits of 
protests that seek to change one law into another law, or exchange one government for 
another or one state for another type of state, etc.

With propaganda, organization, fire and gasoline, we will fight for a life of freedom. 
There is no other way.

As antisocial anarchists we have no interest in saluting ‘the people' or ‘the poor' of 
Venezuela. Our fraternity and solidarity are the with the anarchist and autonomous rebels 
who rise up in the rebellion of Venezuela, who despite the murders, imprisonments and the 
tortures of the socialist government, continue fighting and burning reality with their 
heads held high and fire in the streets.

NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT!
NEITHER DEMOCRACY NOR DICTATORSHIP!
AGAINST ALL GOVERNMENTS!
LONG LIVE ANARCHY!

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Message: 5




Something extraordinary has happened in a corner of north-east Syria. It is a little-known 
story that defies the usual narratives about Syria or Assad, civil war or ISIS. It is 
nothing less than a political revolution, which bears important lessons for the rest of 
the world. In this revolution, women are in the vanguard, both politically and militarily, 
often leading the fight on the frontline and sacrificing their lives against the most 
atavistic and anti-woman enemy there is: the so-called Islamic State - or Daesh, as it is 
more derogatorily known. ---- This place is called Rojava, the Kurdish name for western 
Kurdistan, located in north-eastern Syria. After the collapse of the Assad regime in 2012, 
Kurdish parties began an extraordinary project of self-government and equality for all 
races, religions and women and men. I visited Rojava, in a personal capacity, in the 
summer of 2015 to try to understand what's going on there for a documentary film about 
anarchism, which you can watch on iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08z007p/storyville-accidental-anarchist-life-without-government

Few journalists visit this swath of land along the Turkish border, which is about half the 
size of Belgium. It's difficult to reach and thus expensive, requiring a long journey from 
northern Iraq and a crossing of the Tigris by small boat onto Syrian soil. The Kurdish 
Regional Government of northern Iraq (KRG) is not sympathetic to the Kurds of Rojava, and 
makes access very difficult and sometimes impossible.

The few journalists who make it there tend to focus on the fight with ISIS, assuming that 
this is what most concerns western audiences. Rojava is safer than the main combat zones 
of Syria, but still suffers horrific suicide bombings, and western visitors would of 
course make a fine catch for Daesh kidnappers.

As a result, very little has been reported about the remarkable political experiment of 
Rojava.

What little commentary appears is often secondhand. It therefore frequently repeats 
earlier misconceptions or hostile propaganda put about, above all, by Turkey, which 
opposes the leading political party of the Rojava Kurds - the PYD - and the armed forces 
of Rojava, the People's Self-Defence Units, which comprise the mostly male YPG and 
all-female YPJ. Nor does the political character of the Rojava revolution fit familiar 
pigeonholes; it is neither a nationalist Kurdish project for an independent state, nor is 
it Marxist or communist, nor driven by religious or ethnic motives.

Perhaps most remarkably - and, sadly, uniquely - this is perhaps the most explicitly 
feminist revolution the world has witnessed, at least in recent history. Previously, this 
area was home to traditional peasant norms, including child marriage and keeping women at 
home. These traditions have been overturned: child marriage, for instance, is now illegal. 
There are parallel women's organisations in every field, ranging from the separate women's 
militia, the YPJ, to parallel women's communes and cooperatives. Self-defence is a 
principle of the Rojava revolution, which is why women are so active in the armed struggle 
- but the concept extends towards the right of self-defence against all anti-woman 
practices and ideas, including those of traditional society, not just the extreme violence 
of Daesh.

"From what I saw, this political transformation enjoyed widespread support from all: 
Kurds, Arabs, women and men, young and old. Why wouldn't it? The whole point is to give 
everyone a say in their own government."

In addition to ensuring complete equal rights for women, the feminist politics of Rojava 
aims to break down domination and hierarchy in every aspect of life, recasting social 
relations between all people regardless of age, ethnicity or gender, with the aim of 
achieving an ecologically and socially harmonious society. In terms of historical 
comparison, this project resembles most closely the short period of anarchism witnessed by 
George Orwell in Republican Spain during the Spanish civil war in the late 1930s. But the 
representatives of Rojava also reject the label of anarchism, even if much of the 
inspiration for this revolution came originally from an anarchist thinker from New York 
City, Murray Bookchin.

The political heart of the Rojava project is in the local communal assemblies, in which 
local people take decisions for themselves about everything that concerns them: 
healthcare, jobs, pollution... boys riding their bikes too fast around the village, as one 
woman complained about at an assembly I visited. Women and men are scrupulously given an 
equal voice. Women co-chair every meeting and every assembly. Non-Kurdish minorities, 
mostly Arabs but also Syriacs, Turkmen and Assyrians, are also given priority on the 
speaking list; at meetings I witnessed, interpreters were provided. This is 
self-government, where decisions for the village are taken by the village or region. If 
decisions cannot be made solely at the local level, representatives attend town or 
regional assemblies, but these representatives remain accountable to the communal level 
and may only offer views that are approved locally. It is a very deliberate attempt to 
keep decision-making as local as possible - a rejection of the top-down authority of the 
state.

Ironically, however, the inspiration for the revolution was very much top-down. Abdullah 
Öcalan, the leader of the PKK (the Kurdish guerrilla movement in Turkey), read Murray 
Bookchin's works while in a Turkish jail on an island in the Sea of Marmara (where he 
remains). Once a Marxist-Leninist and a ruthless military leader, Öcalan became convinced 
that self-government without the state was the way forward for the Kurdish people. He 
moulded Bookchin's philosophy for the Kurdish context, calling it "democratic 
confederalism". The Syrian Kurdish PYD is closely associated with the PKK. Following 
Öcalan, its cadres adopted democratic confederalism and implemented it in Syria.

Some have accused the PYD of domineering tactics, particularly at the start of this 
democratic revolution. Such conduct has given room for critics unreasonably to dismiss the 
whole project. From what I saw, this political transformation enjoyed widespread support 
from all: Kurds, Arabs, women and men, young and old. Why wouldn't it? The whole point is 
to give everyone a say in their own government - a radical innovation anywhere, let alone 
in Syria, a country long accustomed to dictatorship and repression. I spoke to many people 
at random. They were uniformly positive, and many argued that the Rojava model, of highly 
decentralised government, should be adopted in the whole of Syria and indeed beyond. But 
it's also a work in progress. In some of the assemblies I attended, women and men sat 
separately, a mark of the journey from traditional practice that this revolution is still 
navigating.

The revolution has suffered considerable assault. Turkey opposes Rojava and has prevented 
all supplies, trade and humanitarian aid from crossing its border into the region. Today, 
Turkish forces are attacking the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), 
which subsumes the YPG/YPJ and Arab militias into a common anti-ISIS front. The SDF has 
been the most effective force in fighting ISIS and has driven it back across hundreds of 
miles of territory, at the cost of thousands of lives. Now, the SDF - led by a woman 
commander, Rojda Felat - has started the attack on ISIS's "capital", Raqqa. The SDF 
currently enjoys US and allied military support, primarily from the air but also from 
American and allied special forces on the ground.

Therefore, US and indeed western governments are involved in a grotesque contradiction in 
which they permit NATO "partner" Turkey to attack the SDF - their most important ally in 
the fight against ISIS - while also proclaiming unyielding commitment to defeating ISIS. 
Thanks to an almost total absence of press coverage, this absurdity attracts no 
controversy in western capitals. Kurds worry, with reason, that once Raqqa falls the US 
will abandon the Kurds to Turkish aggression. Indeed, with Turkish attacks against the SDF 
intensifying in northern Syria in a canton called Afrin, some argue that this betrayal has 
already begun.

The hypocrisies of international geopolitical manoeuvring, however, should not obscure the 
importance of the Rojava democratic revolution. Thanks to its horrific tactics, ISIS 
attracts the attention, but in fact it is Rojava that carries the more important message 
for those who care about democracy. Rojava offers an alternative and practical example 
where the people are in charge, and it works. Rather than replicate the disastrous 
centralised governments of Iraq and Assad's Syria, Rojava's self-governing institutions 
have proposed their model for the whole of Syria once the Assad dictatorship comes to an 
end - and indeed, Rojava has renamed itself the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria in 
order to emphasise its multi-ethnic character and its acceptance of Syria's existing 
borders, another divergence from the lazy western presumption that "the Kurds" want their 
own separate state.

But thanks to Turkish hostility, representatives of the Democratic Federation are excluded 
from the UN talks about the future of Syria - an injustice in which the US, UK and others 
acquiesce. The UN continues to pretend that "the Kurds" are represented by a party that is 
in fact a proxy of the KRG in Iraq. It is telling that international officials - mostly 
men who have never visited the area - still prefer outdated ethnic stereotypes to the more 
accurate cosmopolitan and feminist character of this project.

Meanwhile, the Rojava model is no less relevant in the west, where few can claim that 
democracy is in good health, with disillusionment and right-wing reactionary extremism - 
and, indeed, overt hostility to women (expressed not only by Donald Trump) - both 
ascendant. There are scores of westerners who, like the International Brigade of the 
Republican forces in Spain, have gone to join YPG and YPJ ranks. Several have lost their 
lives, including in recent days a former Occupy Wall Street activist from New York City. 
Some of these brave men and women have been prosecuted on their return home, punished for 
their commitment to democracy and equality. All suffer from the misrepresentation of their 
struggle in much of the international press. In reporting the death of the young Occupy 
activist, the Washington Post described the Rojava revolution as "pseudo-Marxist", when it 
is the very opposite. In this democracy, there is no place for the state, at all. The 
people govern, the antithesis of state communism.

The author, Carne Ross, and Viyan who his film is dedicated to
Thousands of YPG and YPJ fighters have died for this cause. During my visit, I met Viyan, 
a young woman YPJ soldier, on the front line - a huge gravel berm that stretched from 
horizon to horizon across a barren plain in southern Syria. ISIS positions were a few 
hundred metres away. A rifle over her shoulder, she told me that never before in her 
country, or the region, had women been equal to men. Without equality for women, there 
could be no justice in society. She was prepared to die to defend this dispensation. 
Tragically, Viyan was killed several months after our interview, fighting ISIS in the town 
of Al-Shaddadi.

Our film about the search for a better democracy is dedicated to her.

Carne Ross's documentary film, Accidental Anarchist, is available to watch on iPlayer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08z007p/storyville-accidental-anarchist-life-without-government

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