It is also 6 years since we found ourselves together on the streets of the world. We were united by anger, worry, horror, but also hope and faith in our own strength. United by internationalist solidarity, we became hundreds, thousands, millions, One. A strength that gave voice to those who risked and sacrificed their lives day and night for the whole world.
The heroic resistance in the still young Rojava brought not only the victory against the IS and against its inhuman ideology, but also ushered in a new era in the chapter of global internationalism. For many of us, Kobanê was the starting signal to participate in the struggle for humanity, a wake-up call from the sleep of passivity and indifference. Others, who had already given up hope for a better, more just world and lacked the courage to be the change they longed for, were seized anew and rose with fresh strength.
How did the successful resistance manage to inspire millions of people? What did the liberation of a city mean for a whole growing generation?
The victory of the revolutionary forces of YPJ and YPG was particularly impressive because of the values it defended and because of what it made conceivable. The revolution had already achieved so much by then, but what the future promised was what its real appeal was and still is.
In the midst of the chaos that the raging war in Syria represented even then, the people in the north of the country seized the opportunity to take the organization of their lives into their own hands, according to the proposal of Abdullah Ocalan. They threw off the state that had oppressed them for decades like an old coat to weave a colorful glittering dress with the values of women’s liberation, ecology and radical democracy that would shine to the far corners of the world.
It is not surprising that this new reality could inspire us all over the world. We have had enough of a system that exploits, divides and makes war all over the world. We have realized that it is not politicians and armies of individual states that are in conflict with each other. On the contrary, it is the capitalist system of nation-states in itself that is trying to appropriate the power of the peoples to satisfy its own greed for power and profit. This struggle between the state and humanity is a global one and it is time that we organize and fight back just as globally by building an alternative life in all our places. Just as the network of nation states sees every revolutionary movement as a danger to its totality and fights it with all its strength, it gives us the opportunity to attack and hit it anywhere in the world and thus advance the international struggle for freedom and humanity.
This thought led us to set out for Rojava to learn from this revolution, to internalize its principles and carry them back to the world. The path we are all on together is a long one, but today we are already a lot further than 6 years ago and we are picking up speed. The revolution in Kurdistan still shines on the horizon of our homelands and we have not stopped defending them and their values.
November 1, World Kobanê Day is ahead of us and in order to live up to its legacy, we support the call of Rise Up 4 Rojava and call for the first week of November to be the internationalist week of solidarity and action! From Kobanê to the World! Rise Up Against Fascism!
More infos: https://riseup4rojava.org/call-international-week-of-solidarity-and-action-1st-8th-november-2020/