On March 17th the “federal democratic system of Rojava,” a Kurdish term for northern Syria, was proclaimed officially. Some 150 representatives of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian groups met in the city of Rmellane in north-east Syria and voted in favor of the union of three 'cantons' largely populated by Kurds.
Whether history moves in a straight or cyclical line, it matters little. The uncontested fact is that it is in constant motion. Thus, the current situation in Palestine is particularly frustrating to a generation that has grown up after the Oslo Peace Accord because they have been brought up within a strange historical phenomenon: where the earth below their feet keeps shrinking and when time stands still.
Amidst the Syrian civil war and on the front lines of the fight against ISIS, the Kurdish people in northern Syria are building a face-to-face democratic, gender-equal, and ecological revolution from the ground up. Burlington resident Janet Biehl has visited Rojava twice on solidarity delegations, most recently in October, and will be discussing the promises and challenges the revolution is facing.
As US liberals and some leftists are pulling up their sleeves in anticipation of a prolonged battle for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, the tussle becomes particularly ugly whenever the candidates’ foreign policy agendas are evoked.
On the 17th anniversary of the spectacular international plot on Feb. 15, 1999, in which Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was captured, civil war is tearing northern Kurdistan and Turkey apart. Well-aware of Öcalan’s power to direct politics in war and peace, the Turkish state has been isolating him completely from the outside world since April 2015.
Whenever Mariam Aljamal’s children hear the sound of thunder at night, they wet their beds. Their reaction is almost instinctive, and is shared by a large number of children throughout the Gaza Strip. Mariam’s three children – Jamal, Lina and Sarah - were all born a few years after the Gaza siege was first imposed in 2006, and all of them have experienced at least one Israeli war.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019