With greetings to the comrades in Tekoşîna Anarşîst;
We, as individual and collective self-organizations within the Federation of Anarchism Era in the geography of Afghanistan and Iran, are pleased to send you this interview in the form of questions and answers. The hope is that publishing this interview will provide our audience with a better understanding of your ideas and an insight into a decade of your anarchist struggles in Rojava, Kurdistan.
Please share with us the history behind the organization of Tekoşîna Anarşîst and the types of activities you engage in.
Tekoşîna Anarşîst is an anarchist organization that has been fighting in Rojava since 2017, when it was formed. We came together to give collective answers to the questions and hopes that brought many of us here, to support and to defend this revolution. This forced us to reflect about our dynamics and our history, not just as individuals or as organization, but also as a movement. Coming together from different places and different anarchist traditions created some challenges for us, but it also opened opportunities to develop more diverse and comprehensive analysis and perspectives. This allowed us to reflect on strengths and shortcomings of the movements we come from, as well as ways to improve. Continue reading Interview with Tekoşina Anarşist from the Federation of Anarchism Era→
1.- First of all, how are you in Rojava and what is the atmosphere there?
The situation is changing constantly, with moments of euphoria for sporadic victories and moments of terror for the atrocities happening around us. Our organization is in a state of high alert, with a big part of our forces deployed to defend the front lines, as fighters and as combat medic units. We also set up a provisional information office to keep track of the military and political situation, to keep a good coordination of our forces and asses our next steps. We also try to keep communication with other comrades and organizations the best we can in these conditions, sharing updates of the ongoing situation and coordinating to give collective answers to the current attacks. Continue reading Interview of Regeneración Libertaria with Têkoşîna Anarşîst on the current situation in Syria→
This week, we’re sharing a conversation with Errico, a combatant member of Tekoşîna Anarşist, an internationalist anarchist formation in critical solidarity with the Rojava Revolution. For this episode, Errico answers some questions we had about what’s been happening in Syria and concerns from within the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. You can find ideas and updates from the TA formation on their blog, https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org. Past interviews with TA can be found here.
Errico’s voice has been re-recorded by a comrade for anonymity. The transcript is already up in the show notes and at our website for easier reading, translation and sharing and you can find past interviews we’ve done with TA linked in the show notes. And there is an announce-only signal group that anyone can join with updates and analysis by anarchists in the region or paying attention which we’ll link in our shownotes. Just a headsup, the usernames of members of this group will be visible to the all other users there and it might be a good opportunity to set up your signal username and make your phone number unfindable for better anonymity prior to joining the signal group ( https://signal.group/#CjQKIN0TDK_nsHV4uXRtLIdaUOL2R6yv7uvRs8c3RUiXLr-EEhBPEntGCDqJQOD4pzU36i6O )
União Libertária, a group of young libertarians in Portugal, came into contact with militants of the Tekosîna Anarsîst (TA, Anarchist Struggle in Kurdish), present in Rojava, in northeastern Syria. This is a militant conversation around the reflections of this voluntary anarchist group around justice, art, religion and what it is to be “revolutionary”. TA, in addition to having participated in the difficult fight against the forces of the Islamic State (ISIS), currently also functions as a unit of combat medics, assists in agricultural work and plays an educational role.
Anarchist Struggle, or Tekoşîna Anarşist in Kurmanji, is an anarchist combat medic collective operating in Rojava since the time of the war against Daesh / Isis, though its roots go back further. For the hour, you’ll hear a voice actor sharing the words of a member of TA calling themselves Robin Goldman about the their experiences of Asymmetric Warfare waged by Turkey and its proxies in the TFSA, the culture of TA right now, the medical work they’re doing, queerness in Rojava and other topics.
You can find TA online on twitter at @TA_Anarsist as well as their website TekosinaAnarsist.NoBlogs.Org. Members of TA suggested that folks interested in queer and trans organizing in Rojava support the group Keskasor, Kurdish for rainbow and based in Diyarbakir, Turkey. It can be emailed at heftreng.keskesor@gmail.com, found on twitter via @Keskasor_lgbti or on instagram at @KeskesorLGBTI, though their social media presence was last updated in 2020.
One year ago, with the blessing of Donald Trump, Turkish forces invaded Rojava seeking to perpetrate ethnic cleansing in order to forcibly resettle the area, committing summary executions and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Since 2012, the autonomous region of Rojava had hosted a multi-ethnic experiment in self-determination and women’s autonomy while fighting the Islamic State (ISIS). Anarchists participated in resisting the Turkish invasion, some as combat medics on the ground in Syria and others as part of an international solidarity campaign. To this day, Turkish forces continue to occupy a swath of territory in Syria, but they were blocked from conquering the entire region.
Anarchists from around the world have been involved in the experiment in Rojava for many years, joining the YPJ and YPG (“People’s Protection Units”) at the time of the defense of Kobanê against the Islamic State and later forming their own organizations, including the International Revolutionary People’s Guerrilla Forces (IRPGF) and most recently, Tekoşîna Anarşîst (“Anarchist Struggle,” or TA), founded in autumn 2017. In the following extensive interview, several participants in TA compare their experiences fighting the Islamic State and fighting Turkey, explore what has occurred in Syria since the invasion, evaluate the effectiveness of anarchist interventions in Rojava, and discuss what others around the world can learn from struggles in the region. Continue reading Interview with Crimethinc: One Year Since the Turkish Invasion of Rojava→
Revolutionary anarchist organization working in NE Syria (Rojava)
