#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ARGENTINA #ANARCHISM #LIBRARY #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Argentine, FORA - Organizacion-Obrera #95: MULTIPLYING THE LOAVES: COOPERATIVISM IN NORTHEAST SYRIA (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 "Working for that future means starting to live now according to what we are

trying to bring to life" Petra K. Kelly ---- In issue 93 of Organización Obrera ,
initial lines were drawn to analyze the social, cultural and labor organization
of the Kurdish movement under the pretext of the anniversary of the Rojava
revolution.  ---- However, some questions remained to be answered regarding the
economic organization in the cantons and the modes of production to guarantee
survival. We will see later that these modes are not only intended to feed or
clothe the communities, but also to propose another way of inhabiting the
territory.  ---- One of the keys to the economy in Northeast Syria (NES) is
decentralization, which is based on the cooperative model. However, the present
scenario makes it difficult to carry out a count of the number of cooperatives
because there is no central body in charge of it.

The three cantons that make up Rojava (Afrin, Kobane and Cizire) have communes
and political organizations that unite local people, promoting horizontal debate
regarding production.

The organization of the cooperatives goes hand in hand with the functioning of
the communes, which work together: this is possible thanks to the fact that land
ownership is mostly communal. Among the threats to the development of this type
of initiative is, on the one hand, the siege by Turkey and because 70% of the
budget of the cantons is allocated to self-defense.

Among the principles that guide the development of cooperatives is that of
sustainability; an exception to this are refineries that produce diesel. In
Rojava, monoculture and intensive agriculture are rejected, proposing an economic
system whose objective is "to increase society's resources instead of exploiting
them", that is, an alternative development model that rests on the principles of
the social economy (Silva, 2018).

"In general, the people of Rojava, who work until 2:30 p.m., return to their
homes to eat and rest for a while; then he goes out again to attend a meeting
after 5:00 p.m. There are commune meetings, assemblies, cooperatives, women,
families of martyrs, municipalities, etc. (...) This is a very important fact to
understand that all the people of Rojava, through some popular meeting, are part
of the debates and the political process of autonomy" (Aslan, 2022: 198).

Northeast Syria (NES) is facing numerous economic difficulties: inflation,
partial embargo, war and depletion of resources by the occupying Turkish forces
in Serekaniye, Tel Abyad and Afrin. This panorama offered the opportunity to
resume the communal model and its traditional forms of production based on the
principle of solidarity.

Cooperatives, unlike private equity firms, not only seek profit, but distribute
it among their members or use it to invest in future activities. In the case of
northwestern Syria (NES), these initiatives directly cover the needs of the local
population and support civil organizations (Rojava Information Center, 2020).

In 2012, during the Assad government, the regions of what we now know as NES
obtained autonomy by inheriting fields with agricultural monoculture. Most of the
cultivated land was owned by the Syrian government which was later taken over by
the autonomous government structures known today as the Autonomous Administration
of North and East Syria (AANES). In accordance with the principles adopted by the
AANES, part of the cultivable lands were handed over to local communes, which
were organizing cooperatives with the motor of giving priority to meeting the
needs of the local population.

The cooperatives are mostly agricultural, but they are also developed in the
textile field, bakeries, dairy products and there is a small salt mine (Rojava
Information Center, 2020).

The Rojava Social Contract (article 42) defines the principles of economic
organization as follows: "The economic system in the provinces must be aimed at
providing general welfare and in particular at subsidizing science and
technology. It must be aimed at guaranteeing people's daily needs and ensuring a
dignified life. Monopolies are prohibited by law. Labor rights and sustainable
development are guaranteed" (Abrstrakt Magazine, 2017).

Undoubtedly, women have a leading role in the process of transforming the
economy: The trinomial communalism, ecology and women's liberation materializes
in the development of projects focused on addressing the region's
underdevelopment and contributing to solving problems concerning the shortage of
water and electricity. An example of this is the Shilan (Hilleliyah, Qamishlo)
clothing and cosmetics cooperative, which has 73 members and is run by three
women. Its objective is to support low-income people, selling clothes and
cosmetics at a lower price than ordinary stores and allowing access to these
goods in a neighborhood located far from the central market.

How and where the cooperatives are founded has to do with the needs of the
families that inhabit the communes. The next step is to propose its creation to
the council of communes who will determine the people who will be employed taking
into account the poorest households, people injured in the war against ISIS or
Turkey, or families that have lost a member. After that, the Economic Center of
Rojava gives half of the necessary money to the future cooperative and seeds to
start the work (Abrstrakt Magazine, 2017).

"Cooperatives vary in size, type of activity, and earnings. Some are worker
cooperatives, which produce a good or provide a service and obtain a benefit that
is distributed among the members. Others are service cooperatives, which are a
special type of consumer cooperative: financial capital is raised by members in
order to establish a service for the community, which is provided directly
without being commercialized. This is most commonly done in order to purchase a
diesel-powered electricity generator for a neighborhood or town, which can
provide electricity when there is no general electricity supply" (Rojava
Information Center, 2020).

The bodies that support the development of cooperatives are: the Cooperatives
Office of each canton or region, the economic committees of the local Women's
Councils and Aboriya Jin [1].

"The Jazira Cooperative Offices support some 40 worker cooperatives in the
region's two cantons, Qamishlo and Heseke. A cooperative usually incorporates
between 5 and 10 families. There are 23 in Qamishlo canton, of which 13 are
agricultural cooperatives, cultivating 874 hectares of land. The other
cooperatives are mainly engaged in the manufacture and production of clothing or
offer sewing services. The situation varies greatly from region to region: the
Euphrates region, for example, has far fewer cooperatives than the Jazira"
(Rojava Information Center, 2020).

Aboriya Jin has allowed the establishment of more than fifty cooperatives in the
NES, offering the possibility of self-managing their work to around 1,500 women.
The Aboriya Jin women's cooperatives cover 100% of the initial costs of the
project (depending on the activity).

The offices of the cooperatives and Aboriya Jin liaise with future trading
partners and provide training on technical issues as well as the social and
political values of the proposed model.

Leyla Yousef (2020) explains how aspects related to competition in cooperatives
and the decision-making method of commercial activities are handled: "It should
not be that one cooperative competes with another. For example, the cooperative
committee would not support two bread cooperatives in one village. They proceed
according to the needs of local communities." This way of organizing production
aims to avoid the existence of monopolies and distribute profits horizontally.

The Cooperatives also work in the displacement camps, providing their products at
half price to the people who live there. This model tries to attract consumers
and future members alike, strengthening intra-community relations. An example of
this is the cooperative that operates in the camp for displaced persons in Tel
Samen (Raqqa), which grows six hectares of food to be sold at half price and
employs between 15-20 people every day (daily salary of 3,000SYP , around 200
Argentine pesos [2]). The surplus production is sold in the Raqqa market and the
profits are distributed among the 100 families that inhabit the camp (Rojava
Information Center, 2020).

The benefits of cooperatives are distributed as follows (Rojava Information
Center, 2020):

- Taxes to the support organization (Aboriya Jin or the local Cooperative
Office). Used to develop new cooperatives (around 5% if they make a profit). For
agricultural cooperatives that use land provided by AANES, the tax is up to 9%,
and those that use their own land is 5%. As for cooperatives supported by Aboriya
Jin, a tax of 5% of the profit must be paid after 6 months of activity.

- Reinvestment for the development of the cooperative (between 10 - 25%).

-Local projects. Some cooperatives are connected with other institutions; for
example, with the Sazîya malbatên sehidan (Organization for the Families of
Martyrs). The organization offers support to the cooperative which, in turn,
works with families affected by the war. Movement members like Kongra Star
[3]allocate a portion of their profits (via Aboriya Jin) to work on the NES.

- Distribution among the members of the cooperative.

Except in the case of taxes, the rest of the amounts are decided by each cooperative.

Forced displacements and cooperatives

The cooperative economy in the NES is trying to rearm itself after the Turkish
invasion in 2019 that occupied 5,000 km2 that were used for production, looting
and stealing everything in its path.

"Turkish-backed factions seized the Mesopotamia Bakery, resulting in the loss of
machinery and reserves. Cooperative farming associations have also been looted,
with the total loss of 800 tons of wheat, in addition to 1,500 tons of fertilizer
from 6 cooperatives in Sere Kaniye countryside. The psychological impact must be
considered together with the material damage: the experience or threat of
destruction makes any attempt to build future projects seem in vain" (Rojava
Information Center, 2020).

Turning around a destroyed and threatened economy is not easy. The longing for
the return home of the displaced, the Turkish harassment and a process that
aspires to recover social-cultural-community relations is crossed by daily
challenges. Without a doubt, what has been exposed is a clear example of the
power of micropolitical actions, the power of the workers' organization and the
need to produce without extractivism to guarantee a future.

When we look at the Middle East, we often think of that unknown and dangerous
desert. If we look beyond we can glimpse colors, feelings and new ideas for old
problems that are not far from those that arise from the pampas.

The threats in the NES are concrete, here, underhanded but real: fracking, the
war for water, the auction of common goods to foreign capital, the real (but
silent) genocide of communities deprived of water resources and the urgent need
to think of other productive models that allow us to live well understood in the
broadest sense of the term. It is clear then that the organization is an
internationalist tool to transcend murderous systematics in view of a common future.

"The path to transformation is the organization and activism that manage to open
a gap so that not everything that happens is more of the same" (Night Council,
2018). An invitation to transcend the marketing of the collective in concrete
actions that go beyond personalism to make it clear that inhabiting reality is,
neither more nor less, "rejecting the human desire for everything to be
channeled, reducible to a form of government . In the habitation, the
construction of a new geography is spread in which the forms - of - life enter
into intimacy with the most sensitive of the territory, prolonging, purifying,
gaining in presence and not in representation" (Night Council, 2018).

References

Aguilar Silva, ES (2018). Ecofeminism in Rojava: towards the construction of an
alternative model of economic development in the Syrian territory of Kurdistan.
Available at:
https://www.ecologiapolitica.info/ecofeminismo-en-rojava-hacia-la-construccion-de-un-modelo-alternativo-de-desarrollo-economico-en-el-territorio-sirio-del-kurdistan
/

Azize A., (2021). Anti-capitalist economy in Rojava: the contradictions of the
revolution in the Kurdish struggle. BUAP: Mexico.

Night Council (2018). A stronger dwelling than the metropolis. Ed. Pumpkin seeds.
Logrono: Spain.

Kurdistan Latin America (2017). Rojava: economy and cooperatives in full
revolution. Available at:
https://www.kurdistanamericalatina.org/rojava-economia-y-cooperativas-en-plena-revolucion/


Pryke, L. (2019). Ishtar. Available at:
https://www.worldhistory.org/trans/es/1-271/ishtar/

Rojava Information Center (2020). Information Dossier - Cooperatives in North and
East Syria: Developing a New Economy. Available at:
https://rojavaazadimadrid.org/dossier-informativo-cooperativas-en-el-norte-y-este-de-siria-desarrollo-de-una-nueva-economia/
  The New Bridge Project (2022). Conversations with Gamechangers series. ABORIYA
JIN. Available at:
https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/watch-along-solidarity-economy-associations-conversations-with-gamechangers/

[one]Aboriya Jin means "Women's Economy". It is a democratic autonomous economic
body that is part of the women's movement in northern and eastern Syria. It is
part of Kongra Star, a vast umbrella of the many bodies of the women's movement,
from the women's committees at the commune (neighborhood assembly) level, to the
self-governing autonomous system that forms the new system of stateless radical
democracy that is reorganizing society from scratch as part of the Rojava
Revolution. Active throughout the region and made up entirely of women, Aboriya
Jin's work is to strengthen the role of women in society by building the women's
economy, empowering women to be self-sufficient and developing the trust and
collective autonomy.
[2] approximate values (December 2022).
[3] Kongra Star was founded in 2005 under the name Yekîtiya Star (Women's Union
in Kurdish) and is a confederation of women's organizations in Rojava. The name
"Star" refers to the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar (goddess of love,
beauty, life and fertility). Ishtar comes from a very early time in the history
of complex civilizations, with her cult attested in Uruk at the end of the 4th
century BC (Pryke, 2019).
URSULA

https://organizacion-obrera.fora.com.ar/2023/01/09/multiplicar-los-panes-cooperativismo-en-el-noreste-de-siria/
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