The fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime on December 8, 2024, in the face of
a coalition of rebel groups led primarily by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTC)has brought Syrian territory back into the media spotlight. While the
immediate geopolitical consequences of this territorial reconfiguration
for the future of the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria
(AADNES) have already been analyzed (1), the question of the internal
dynamics of this territory remains largely unresolved. Since the
2011/2012 uprising and the beginning of autonomy for Rojava (Western
Kurdistan), the territory has been subject to a state of permanent war:
first against the Islamic State, whose defeat led to an expansion
outside the Kurdish heartland, and then, since 2008, against Turkey and
its proxies. This war, which alternated between low- and high-intensity
phases, had significant repercussions on the implementation of the
political project initially pursued by the vanguard of the PYD
(Democratic Union Party). To understand the dynamics at work today, it
is necessary to revisit both the content of the locally driven political
project and the context in which it is rooted.
The creation of the PYD in 2003 closely followed the process of
refounding the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), a "sister party" whose
national liberation struggle focuses on Turkish territory. Noting,
internationally, the decline of left-wing forces accompanying the
collapse of the USSR, as well as a local context marked by the
strengthening of the Turkish state, the PKK decided to reform its
political project starting in the late 1990s, under the leadership of
its founder, Abdullah Öcalan (imprisoned since 1999, but whose prison
writings would continue to be decisive in this shift). The party
officially abandoned Marxism (2), which was confusedly equated with
state socialism, to pursue, under the influence of the writings of
Murray Bookchin and libertarian municipalism, the construction of a
"democratic confederalism," officially aiming to transcend the state and
whose stated pillars were "social ecology, grassroots participation in
politics, self-defense, and women's liberation" (Öcalan, 2011).
From its founding in 2003 (and especially after the Kurdish uprising of
2004), the PYD focused its strategy on developing a militant network
based on the communes and drawing on pre-existing practices of
collectivization and mutual aid in a society that was still
predominantly agrarian. The 2011/2012 Revolution allowed the embryonic
communes, born underground, to assert themselves as institutions capable
of organizing society, locally subdividing the various committees
established during this period. Operating according to a system of
commissions and delegations to the various committees (with mandatory
and revocable mandates), these communes were massively invested during
the revolutionary period (particularly by women, whose political
participation was normalized by the PYD). Replacing the defunct
institutions of the Syrian Baathist state, they enabled collective
organization in a chaotic context. However, under the impetus of the
TEV-DEM (3), this system will quickly be doubled by an administration
taking up the traditional tripartite division of powers. These new
institutions will have objectives as varied as taking charge of
diplomatic relations (in order to have weight in international
negotiations), managing the redistribution of oil revenues (in an
economy largely based on oil rent) or contributing to the security of
the territory. Forming a de facto proto-state, they are conceived at the
time of their implementation as a temporary stage between the old world
and the new, an "accident" whose future must remain under the
surveillance of the PYD (and its armed branch of the YPG/YPJ), the
function of the party being to create a link between the communes and
the administration by continuing to play its vanguard role during the
transition period (4). This administration, now known as the Democratic
Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria (DAAS), has undergone
numerous reconfigurations over time, the most recent of which followed
the promulgation of a new social contract (de facto constitution) in
December 2023, to which we will return.
While this tripartite system between administrative structures,
municipal structures, and the party appeared for a time to be in
relative balance (5), it was, however, severely disrupted by Turkey's
entry into the war and the Turkish invasion of Afrin canton in 2018 and
then of the territory of Serekaniye and Tal Abyad in 2019. In an
emergency context, where decisions had to be made quickly,
municipalities tended to delegate more and more decisions to their most
"seasoned" members, considered to be best placed to make the right
choices (6). This type of dynamic ultimately contributed to weakening
municipalities as key players in socio-political life, reinforcing
dynamics of disaffection. In a defensive context rather than one of
expansion, as was the case during the offensives against the Islamic
State, it also became more difficult for many residents of the region to
project themselves and get involved in common projects, resulting in the
beginnings of a break with the political project of "democratic
confederalism."
It is quite significant to note among many formerly involved members of
the municipalities a disillusioned discourse about the potential for
action within them today. For many, municipalities are now perceived as
mere technical bodies, primarily involved in the distribution of
subsidized products essential to daily life: household gas cylinders,
heating oil (two essential products for cooking and heating), bread,
oil, etc.
In this context, the new social contract promulgated in December 2023
could be interpreted as an attempt to "democratize" the political system
as it appears today. This new social contract, the result of numerous
consultations, aims to decentralize the Autonomous Administration (7) by
significantly strengthening the influence of its lowest level, the
municipalities (elected by universal suffrage). While municipalities
theoretically retain control over decisions in the event of a dispute,
the preponderance given to municipalities could allow local interests to
be taken into account even in the event of weak municipal activity.
However, the concomitant reappearance of class antagonisms within
society may also have contributed to these disinvestment logics. If the
revolution had in some way put class struggles on hold, they are now
regaining visibility. In rural areas, despite the fact that large
portions of territories belonging to the Baathist state were taken over
by the communes, the cooperative system supported by local actors was
never really able to take off (remaining more of an alternative than a
necessity) and land is still largely monopolized by large landowners
(even if many elements of the most advanced fraction of the landed
aristocracy were able to leave the territory at the time of the
revolution and saw some of their land expropriated). In the cities, a
small commercial bourgeoisie has grown stronger, taking advantage of the
vacuum left by Baathist power. Linked to the smuggling trade in an
embargoed territory, this bourgeoisie is directly or indirectly linked
to a lumpenproletariat indispensable to this particular trade. Added to
this are the disparities in living standards due to remittances from
abroad, which benefit those fortunate enough to have family members
abroad (a situation that affects some communities more than others and
is, for example, very widespread among members of the various Christian
communities). While the PYD and its allies have, for both internal and
external pragmatic reasons, always valued a certain social compromise,
prioritizing the issue of national independence (of the Kurdish people
as well as other components of the liberated territories) before the
issue of class struggle, it is nevertheless possible that these dynamics
will eventually sever the link established between the political project
and the most disadvantaged classes, whose sacrifices have nevertheless
been enormous since the beginning of the revolution. Ultimately, while
the revolution has brought about enormous social changes in northeastern
Syria-whether we consider the coexistence between communities, which is
far from evident, or the upheavals in women's daily lives (with the
establishment of mediations allowing them to assert themselves socially
and politically)-it nevertheless confronts the contradictions inherent
in "socialism in one country."
The weak response of the global left in 2018 and 2019 to the invasion of
Afrin and the Serekaniye and Tal Abyad territories gave Turkey ample
scope to pursue a destructive and demobilizing policy with total
impunity. Since 2018, Turkey's war has in fact never ceased: the country
has continued to sporadic bombing of the territory's vital
infrastructure and to carry out targeted assassinations by drone. A
low-intensity war of formidable effectiveness: the destruction and
deaths continue, without the political situation changing.
Forced to survive in this situation by tactically compromising regional
and international actors pushing for the normalization of the political
experience (such as the United States), the AADNES is now more than ever
on borrowed time. While the territory is now under threat of further
direct intervention by Turkey, only internationalist solidarity will
prevent history from repeating itself once again.
Q.
Notes
(1) See, for example, the article "Syria: What are the consequences for
Rojava, the Kurds, and the Southeast of the country?" by Mam Dirrîçîçek,
published on the Lundi Matin website.
(2) It would be wrong to overestimate the consequences of the
abandonment of Marxism, as the party has always focused more on
questions of national liberation than on analyses of the mode of
production. (3) Tevgera Civaka Demokratîk (Movement for a Democratic
Society), at the time the coordinating body for the various committees,
operated according to a system of delegation.
(4) GRASSO David, The People's Communes in Rojava and North-Eastern
Syria. Characters, Evolution and Contradictions of an Institution of
Self-Government, 2022
(5) This is evidenced by the initial success of communes in
Arab-majority regions liberated from the Islamic State: the communes
allowed for integration into an economic and social network in addition
to giving political life to local communities.
(6) GRASSO David, The People's Communes in Rojava and North-Eastern
Syria. Characters, Evolution and Contradictions of an Institution of
Self-Government, 2022
(7) Note that the Self-Government, by seeking to integrate various civil
organizations and therefore as many different interests, can be quite
permeable to class dynamics.
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4402
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten