Kurds have been an ethic underclass in Turkey since the founding of modern Turkey, where Atatürk, for unknown reasons, decided to take a hard-line stance against them. Obviously the ethnic conflict dates back further than that but this traces a direct through line to today.
Then it’s basically the same old deal - they got treated like second class citixens, they faced all sorts of government repression and pogroms etc. such that the likelihood of modern Turkey reaching an accord with the Kurds is either a pipedream or its going to take like a century+ of both sides working diligently and in good faith to resolve this conflict.
You know how Romani people are treated as essentially subhumans in Europe, how they are excluded and ostracised and subject to all sorts of repression as well as frequent attempts to displace or exterminate them (at least historically speaking)? Yeah, that’s a pretty good match for how Kurds are treated especially in Turkey.
The Kurds in NE Syria are led by the PKK, which is the mortal enemy of Turkey. The PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has been imprisoned on Turkey’s own Alcatraz alone for years and years now. The PKK has worked closely with Palestinian liberation movements, especially the PFLP, with training, coordination and mutual support going back decades. The PKK was ML until fairly recently where Öcalan took a sorta libertarian turn, being directly inspired by Murray Bookchin’s (kinda) post anarchist Libertarian Municipalism which Öcalan developed into Democratic Confederalism, which the PKK has been attempting to implement in Rojava.
The chances of Rojava surviving intact after the recent turn of events in Syria are slim. Turkey will do whatever it takes to steamroll Rojava imo and if they aren’t doing it right now then the only reason is that they’re probably drawing up their plans for how to go aboit it. Israel has conducted precision strikes to deal a major blow to Rojava/the SDF’s military capacity.
Of all the groups in the Syrian civil war, the SDF is really the only one qualified for the term “moderate rebels” imo, they are secular and progressive and, although I have significant criticisms of Rojava and I think they are glamourised by anarchists undeservedly, in a situation where Assad has been taken off the board they are by far the best option and, being led by the PKK, Rojava is the only shot at something radical left emerging from the Syrian civil war although how hopeful one is about those prospects-not to mention the prospects of Rojava surviving in this new phase of the Syrian civil war-are very much debatable.
Kurds have been an ethic underclass in Turkey since the founding of modern Turkey, where Atatürk, for unknown reasons, decided to take a hard-line stance against them. Obviously the ethnic conflict dates back further than that but this traces a direct through line to today.
Then it’s basically the same old deal - they got treated like second class citixens, they faced all sorts of government repression and pogroms etc. such that the likelihood of modern Turkey reaching an accord with the Kurds is either a pipedream or its going to take like a century+ of both sides working diligently and in good faith to resolve this conflict.
You know how Romani people are treated as essentially subhumans in Europe, how they are excluded and ostracised and subject to all sorts of repression as well as frequent attempts to displace or exterminate them (at least historically speaking)? Yeah, that’s a pretty good match for how Kurds are treated especially in Turkey.
The Kurds in NE Syria are led by the PKK, which is the mortal enemy of Turkey. The PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has been imprisoned on Turkey’s own Alcatraz alone for years and years now. The PKK has worked closely with Palestinian liberation movements, especially the PFLP, with training, coordination and mutual support going back decades. The PKK was ML until fairly recently where Öcalan took a sorta libertarian turn, being directly inspired by Murray Bookchin’s (kinda) post anarchist Libertarian Municipalism which Öcalan developed into Democratic Confederalism, which the PKK has been attempting to implement in Rojava.
The chances of Rojava surviving intact after the recent turn of events in Syria are slim. Turkey will do whatever it takes to steamroll Rojava imo and if they aren’t doing it right now then the only reason is that they’re probably drawing up their plans for how to go aboit it. Israel has conducted precision strikes to deal a major blow to Rojava/the SDF’s military capacity.
Of all the groups in the Syrian civil war, the SDF is really the only one qualified for the term “moderate rebels” imo, they are secular and progressive and, although I have significant criticisms of Rojava and I think they are glamourised by anarchists undeservedly, in a situation where Assad has been taken off the board they are by far the best option and, being led by the PKK, Rojava is the only shot at something radical left emerging from the Syrian civil war although how hopeful one is about those prospects-not to mention the prospects of Rojava surviving in this new phase of the Syrian civil war-are very much debatable.