Rojava is not only a region in Kurdistan, but an alternative model for the Middle East and the World

The defends of Rojava

In an editorial published in yesterday’s Özgür Gündem, the imprisoned activist Kenan Kirkaya argues that Rojava is not simply a “point on the compass” (Rojava is often translated to mean “West” in Kurdish), a region in Kurdistan, or a continuation of the Iraqi Kurdistan: it is a place where a revolutionary model  s being developed and implemented that challenges the hegemonny of the capitalist, nation-state system. This revolutionary model, he argues, “does not just have meaning for Kurds, or for Syria or Kurdistan,” and that everyone who is “critical of the current system and looking honestly at the needs of society and of life” should be interested in Rojava. For those who want to ask what is happening in Rojava, he explains, it is necessary to understand what Rojava is: not just a region, but an important idea which offers a serious challenge to the status quo in the Middle East and which is available to all the peoples of the region.  He goes on to write:

To destroy the barriers and walls that have attempted to keep us from Rojava is to unite spiritually, physically and mentally. Only in unity will we find salvation from this system which kills us, which strips us all of our identities, and makes us pawns against one another in wars of power. Our duty is to be on the side of the people of Rojava fighting in communal solidarity against hunger and attack, and the revolutionary council representing the spirit of Rojava and functioning as an emergency power.