A poem about the Rojava Revolution

In recognition of July 19th, 2022 marking the ten-year anniversary of the Rojava Revolution, our Agency asked the American global conflict analyst Dr. Thoreau Redcrow to describe what the Rojava Revolution has come to signify to the world. Based on his observations from multiple visits throughout the region and his work with the Autonomous Administration, the following is his prose poem entitled “All that Rojava is”

20 July, 2022 03:05

NEWSDESK

All that Rojava is

by Thoreau Redcrow

The Rojava Revolution is historically rooted in the Paris Commune, Spanish Civil War streets of Barcelona, and the Zapatista’s uprising.

The Rojava Revolution is an idea standing on the shoulders of women martyrs like Arin Mirkan, Zozan Cudi, Hevrin Khalaf, Ceren Gunes, and thousands of other heroines.

The Rojava Revolution is sacred ground where over 13,000 martyrs laid down their life in pursuit of freedom.

The Rojava Revolution is the city of Kobane heroically refusing to accept defeat even when it was surrounded, outnumbered, and turned into rubble.

The Rojava Revolution is proof that brave people armed only with guns, books, and ideals, can repel the invading Turkish Army with all of its jets, tanks, missiles, drones, and artillery.

The Rojava Revolution is a battlefield where the YPG and YPJ fight alongside diverse allies from the International Freedom Battalion and Turkish Left, for a better world.

The Rojava Revolution is the inspirational example that women do not belong hidden in black shrouds as invisible ghosts, but as essential members of public life.

The Rojava Revolution is a groundbreaking experiment in democratic confederalism with Imrali Island as its flashing beacon and humanity as its guiding moral value.

The Rojava Revolution is a vision where corporations are replaced with communes, plutocrats are replaced with councils, and isolation is replaced with social responsibility.

The Rojava Revolution is a community where every citizen has a political voice and life is organized to ensure they are active participants in controlling their own destiny.

The Rojava Revolution is the belief that our planet’s collapse can be prevented with social ecology and that no society is free if its women are not fully liberated.

The Rojava Revolution is a culture where women’s mandatory black burqas under ISIS have been swapped out for university graduation gowns.

The Rojava Revolution is an alternative model of governance where offensive armies have been replaced with self-defense units concerned with protecting the people.

The Rojava Revolution is a commitment that Sunnis, Shias, Alevis, Alawites, Christians, Jews, Yazidis, and Zoroastrians should all be free to worship without fear.

The Rojava Revolution is a multi-ethnic democracy where Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Circassians, Turkmen, Chechens, and Western volunteers are all welcome to contribute.

The Rojava Revolution is a little Kurdish girl being able to go to school in her mother tongue for the first time.

The Rojava Revolution is an Armenian family building a happy life atop the forgotten graves of their ancestors who were death-marched through these lands during the Armenian Genocide.

The Rojava Revolution is a young Arab woman from Deir ez-Zor telling her tribal father that she now wants to be a lawyer, and him accepting her dream.

The Rojava Revolution is a young Syriac man deciding to defend his family’s village against Turkish military shelling and occupation.

The Rojava Revolution is displaced families from Afrin who know that Turkey may cut down and steal their olive trees with their barbarism, but eventually the fascist invaders will be defeated.

The Rojava Revolution is every laughing child in Derik, every busy restaurant in Qamislo, every Kurdish song being sung on the streets of Hasakah, and every smiling family having a picnic in Amude.

The Rojava Revolution is taking ISIS dungeons in Raqqa and transforming them into centers of art or libraries, and Arab families from southern Syria relocating to Manbij for the safety and stability that SDF provides.

The Rojava Revolution is a promise that ropes will never again be used to hang Sheikh Said, Seyid Riza, and Qazi Muhammad, that chemical gas will never again be dropped on Kurdish cities, and that thousands of Kurdish villages will never again be burned to the ground.

The Rojava Revolution is a burning candle amidst the darkness, illuminating a path towards a brighter future for Kurdistan and the entire Middle East.

ANHA