{"id":10034,"date":"2018-12-19T22:07:12","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T03:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=10034"},"modified":"2018-12-19T22:07:12","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T03:07:12","slug":"rojava-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/12\/19\/rojava-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Rojava at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve posted<\/a> here before<\/a> about the Kurdish experiment<\/a> in social-ecological-feminist radical democracy<\/a> that’s been unfolding in the unlikeliest circumstances in the northern Syrian region<\/a> of Rojava<\/a>. Donald Trump’s sudden announcement<\/a> of a complete U.S. military withdrawal from Syria now leaves that experiment extremely vulnerable… which puts anti-war* activists into an uncomfortable position.<\/p>\n

(I add that asterisk to “anti-war” because I see the anti-war goal as occasionally requiring civil and even military defense, for instance when a people and land are under attack by a foreign invader. There are shades of grey here, but the point is to work continuously toward creating the conditions for lasting peace even while protecting one’s citizens from annihilation.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
The Washington Post’s editorial board writes<\/a>:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s decision appears to have been precipitated by the bellicose rhetoric of Turkey\u2019s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who last week threatened \u2014 not for the first time \u2014 a military operation against Syrian Kurds, even though U.S. troops are positioned around them. The autocratic Turkish ruler appears to have extracted favors from Mr. Trump in recent days, including the sale of U.S. Patriot missiles and a promise to reexamine the possible extradition of his rival, Fethullah Gulen, from Pennsylvania. If Mr. Trump received anything in return, he hasn\u2019t disclosed it.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
The Syrian Kurdish forces, which have fought alongside the United States and played a crucial role in liberating most of eastern Syria from the jihadists, will be perhaps the foremost victims of Mr. Trump\u2019s decision. Betrayed by Washington, they will now be subject to a military offensive by Turkey. The stab in the back will send an unforgettable message to all who are asked to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism: Washington is an unreliable and dangerous partner.”<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The <\/span>Rojava Emergency Committee<\/a> is <\/span>asking<\/a> that U.S. citizens urge their congressional and Senate representatives, as well as Elliot Engel, incoming Democratic chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, not to withdraw from Rojava. Please do that if you care about the <\/span>largest stateless nation in the world<\/a> (which happens to be building what’s probably the largest experiment in anarcha-feminist radical eco-democracy history has seen).<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve posted here before about the Kurdish experiment in social-ecological-feminist radical democracy that’s been unfolding in the unlikeliest circumstances in the northern Syrian region of Rojava. Donald Trump’s sudden announcement of a complete U.S. military withdrawal from Syria now leaves that experiment extremely vulnerable… which puts anti-war* activists into an uncomfortable position. (I add that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691215],"tags":[520657,17866,520656,520655,123583,350203,277,12622,25056],"class_list":["post-10034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics_postpolitics","tag-anti-war","tag-bookchin","tag-foreign-policy","tag-kurdistan","tag-kurds","tag-rojava","tag-social-ecology","tag-syria","tag-war"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-2BQ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8482,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/11\/29\/the-rojava-experiment\/","url_meta":{"origin":10034,"position":0},"title":"The Rojava Experiment","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 29, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Wes Enzinna's New York Times Magazine article on \"The Rojava Experiment\" finally gives mainstream recognition to what has been happening among the Kurds of northern Syria. As he writes, \"In accordance with a philosophy laid out by a leftist revolutionary named Abdullah Ocalan, Rojavan women had been championed as leaders,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8032,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/02\/16\/the-ecology-of-syriankurdish-freedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":10034,"position":1},"title":"The ecology of Syrian\/Kurdish freedom","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"February 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Eco-theorists may recognize the title of this post as a variation on the title of Murray Bookchin's audacious and\u00a0deeply\u00a0influential (for many, including myself) 1982 book The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy (pdf here). What's little known to anyone following recent news about the war in Syria\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/_38eVyMfag0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8902,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/07\/12\/assessing-murray-bookchins-legacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":10034,"position":2},"title":"Assessing Murray Bookchin’s legacy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Damian White has posted an excellent review\u00a0of Janet Biehl's book Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin at the Jacobin blog. Bookchin's legacy has undergone something of a revival of late\u00a0thanks to the\u00a0efforts of Kurdish eco-socialist communitarians in Rojava. As he did in his 2008 book Bookchin: A Critical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9316,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2017\/06\/23\/bioregionalism-primer\/","url_meta":{"origin":10034,"position":3},"title":"Bioregionalism primer","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 23, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"When I began my involvement with environmental politics in the 1980s, the main currents of radical or critical thought were represented by deep ecologists\u00a0(or biocentrists), social ecologists (gathered around Murray Bookchin and his Institute for Social Ecology), and ecofeminists, and they seemed more at odds with each other than united.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13275,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2023\/07\/27\/symbioceneruigoord-nl\/","url_meta":{"origin":10034,"position":4},"title":"Symbiocene@Ruigoord.NL","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Two things to consider before your morning coffee. 1) We are living through a Holocene collapse event,* when the nearly 12,000 year old regime of relative climate stability, the \"comfort zone\" for most of what we know as human civilization, is beginning to tear to shreds. 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