To comrades near & far,
To all who struggle for free life,
To those who walk towards the dawn,
Revolutionary greetings!
The world has been going through major upheaval. As international order is cracking apart, various imperialist powers scramble to gain advantage in the chaos. The peoples, who find themselves in fissures of this system, face all the brutality of cold geopolitical algorithms of global capital. Yet glimmers of hope shine through the clouds of dust. Spirit of rebellion is sweeping the globe, authoritarian regimes are falling one by one. In that spirit, anarchists and revolutionaries everywhere are waking to the necessity to act and to organize – to realize the other ways of living that we know are possible.
1 year passed since Assad regime of authoritarian terror crumbled. Ahmed ash-Shara’a, US-groomed jihadist-turned-politician and his HTŞ with roots in jihadist Islam, are consolidating a new central state in the aftermath, soaking the soil with fresh waves of blood in the process. Although the attention of the international press on this region has waned since the fall of regime, anyone seeking to build a world where you can speak your own language and live your own culture would do well to look closely at what’s happening in Syria now.
While USA & Russia compete for position in new Syrian landscape vying for influence over the new regime, Turkey seeks to turn the country into a present day vilayet of their imperial ambition. Israel continues expanding their military occupation into not-so-temporal buffer zones. USA, Russia, Turkey, Israel, Europe – each of them proposes various “solutions” for the region that are nothing more than perpetuation of imperialist agendas. None of them offer a path to a free life for the peoples who live here.
In the face of that, steadfast in commitment to ideals of direct democracy, women’s liberation & social ecology is revolutionary project in NE Syria. Here we live & struggle alongside Arab, Kurdish, Assyrian, Syriac, Armenian, Yezidi & other people of this land over last 8 years.
We have seen the difficulties of organizing a just life based in mutual aid and direct democracy, of overcoming the legacies of patriarchy and state-mentality, as well as the beautiful possibilities that such a way offers. Despite many military, economic and psychological attacks of forces of global capital in its various colors, the revolution nurtures seeds of new way of living. They are gradually overcoming the contradictions so often used to divide oppressed people: religion, language, culture. Naturally, the various powers would much prefer to install another authority in Damascus, who would be willing to keep the people in line with boot and gun while selling off the land and nature to the highest bidder.
The model of autonomous self-administration developed in NE Syria presents critical threat to their narrative that there is “no other way” than capitalist modernity managed by nation-states and their technocrats. The revolution in NE Syria proves them wrong every day. In times of great change, we face big questions. While world gears up for war – how to survive? Our revolutionary movements around the world are not yet solid enough to support each other to be able to stand without engaging somehow with various regional and global state powers.
This is a reality we must face and take a deeply self-critical approach to. What must we do to be able to support one another? How can we make the imperial powers’ support or its absence irrelevant? Moreover, when we manage to liberate areas from state power, how will we face the contradictions that remain in our communities – problems that cannot be avoided or idly theorized about, but demand direct and active participation? In North East Syria such questions are being worked through in real life, through direct daily struggle, by trying what is possible and learning from our failures. Are we as a movement learning from these invaluable experiences?
Comrades – we must do all we can to build our movements, link & support our struggles with concrete actions. We call on revolutionaries everywhere to open dialogue with us, with revolutionary movement in Syria, with other lands & struggles, to find ways towards a life of freedom.
We encourage those who are able to come to NE Syria. And everyone, everywhere to organize! Build movements, widen the networks of international solidarity. There is much to be done. Not only in NE Syria: the struggle and this revolution is about the whole of Syria and of the world.
Syrian anarchist Omar Aziz said: “If revolution fails, my life and that of my whole generation would be devoid of meaning. All we’ve dreamt of and believed in would’ve been mere illusion.” In other words: nothing less than a fight like hell for Syria will suffice. Join us in struggle!