DECLARATION OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE KURDS AND PEOPLE IN RESISTANCE IN NORTHERN SYRIA
In response to the US troop withdrawal from Syria, decided by the President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and in anticipation of the impending military attack of the free people in Rojava that this deal enables, we consider it urgent and necessary to state the following:
1. – The Commune of Rojava represents the first political, anti-capitalist project in the Middle East that, based on Democratic Confederalism, promotes an alternative understanding of social organisation, which is based on non-state autonomy, self-determination, direct democracy and the fight to patriarchy. The autonomy of Rojava is a possible utopian world where interculturality, different and righteous gender relations and respect for Mother Eart are developed day by day. Rojava demonstrates that we must not resign ourselves to the atrocities in our time.
2. – The first result of the struggle for autonomy in Rojava has been holding back the Islamic State and its fundamentalism. Today, this deal undermines the efforts made by the Kurdish militants, jeopardizing the important achievements YPG and YPJ made against IS in Southern Syria to date. As a matter of fact, Kurdish forces will have to relocate in order to protect Rojava’s northern border from the Turkish invasion.
3. – The war against the autonomy of Rojava, which was built on the ruins of the Syrian State, has been going on systematically for years: attacks and invasions have been the norm. Following the U.S. military forces withdrawal from the Turkish-Syrian border, this threat becomes more dangerous, and Turkey’s hostility towards those who fight for democracy turns into a real chance of genocide.
For these reasons, us signers of this declaration – scholars, students, activists, social and political organisations, people coordinating and in resistance – express our solidarity with the struggle of Kurds and people of Northern Syria, and shout our anger at this latest capitalist and patriarchal attack from the Turkish State, which is happening in the loud and complicit silence of the European Union and international organisations, and demonstrates how Human Rights are only defended when they obey the laws of the markets.
Defending Rojava means defending those who resist every day, in the Middle East as in every other part of the world, against the advancing atrocities. This declaration is a cry of rage, indignation and solidarity with our Kurdish brothers and sisters, who fight and die in the name of freedom and democracy.
Que viva la vida! Que muera la muerte!
Rojava is not alone!
In solidarity
John Holloway
Sergio Tischler
Fernando Matamoros Ponce
Calos Figeroa
Jerome Baschet
Noam Chomsky
Sylvia Marcos
Jean Robert
David Harvey
Arjun Appadurai
Etienne Balibar
Teodor Shanin
Barbara Duden
Michael Hardt
Marina Sitrin
Carole Pateman
Donna Haraway
Raquel Gutierrez
Boaventura de Sousa Santos
Federica Giardini
Dora Maria Hernandez Holguin
Francesca Gargallo
Giacomo Marramao
Alfonso Garcia Vela
Roberto Xavier Ochoa Gabaldón
Vittorio Sergi
Aldo Zanchetta
Lucia Linsalata
Kathleen Bryson
David Graeber
Edith Gonzales
Gustavo Esteva
Raul Zibechi
Alexandros Kioupkiolis
Paolo Vernaglione Berardi
Anna Rosa
Antonio Lucci
Luigi Sonnefeld
Fabio Milana
Mina Lorena Navarro
scott crow
Umberto Franchi
Imanol Antonio García Verges
Luis Menéndez Bardamo
Elaine Santos
Arturo Escobar
Joan Martinezalier
Viviana Asara
Ines Duran Matute
Jill Rease
Alberto Bonnet
Sergio Uribe
Paola Rafanelli
Juan Miguel Ortiz Reparaz
Esther Patricia King Davalos
Francisco Javier Villanueva Vázquez
Daniele Fini
Giuseppe Lo Brutto
Cecilia Zeledón
Màrgara Millán
Luisa Riley
Raúl Ornelas
Daniel Inclán
Rita Laura Segato
Raffaele K. Salinari
Philippe Corcuff
Roberto Giovannini
Angela Micheli
Maurizio Pallante
Larisa de Orbe
Jorge Alonso Sánchez
Evelyn Fox Keller
Balam Pineda Puente
Dalia Morales
Juan Wahren
Mercedes Escamilla
Juan Carlos Mijangos Noh
13 October 2019