Rojava Event on Crete

Internationalists from Rojava visited the squat "Rosa Nera" in Crete and reported on the grassroots democratic model of society in the autonomous region of Northeast Syria.

On Tuesday evening, members of the Internationalist Community of Rojava and the Women Defend Rojava Campaign visited the Squat "Rosa Nera" (Black Rose) in Chania, Crete. The squat has now been in existence for 16 years and has had to defend itself time and time again against plans to sell the building to the tourism industry. Different people live together in the squat, including several refugees. There are plenary sessions, coffee afternoons and events, including last night's event on Rojava. At short notice 45 interested people came together and listened intently to the presentation of the three speakers.

There was great interest especially in the paradigm of Democratic Confederalism of Abdullah Öcalan and its practical implementation in the liberated areas of Northern and Eastern Syria. In Crete and Greece as a whole, the Rojava Revolution and the participation of internationalists is until now mostly known for the military struggle of the defense forces against the "Islamic state" and the Turkish occupation. There is much interest, but also many questions and unclear points about the deep meaning of the revolution, the ideas and the reality on the ground.

The Anarchist Library "Eutopia"

The anarchist library "Eutopia" (Utopia) and the local "Women Defend Rojava" committee in Athens have been dealing with the ideas of the Kurdish liberation movement for many years, organising events and actions to spread the paradigm and draw attention to the situation in the liberated areas. An important task for the library is to translate basic texts of the Kurdish movement and thus create a deeper understanding. This also includes ideological texts and brochures from the Andrea Wolf Institute, among others, and the book of the campaign Make Rojava Green Again, which can be ordered from "Eutopia" in the Greek edition. But also current political analyses from Rojava are translated, since there is little information in Greek about the current political and military developments in the liberated territories.

Local struggles in a global context

For some time now, the library has been in good contact with the Internationalist Commune of Rojava and organizes events and seminars to carry the ideas to the different political groups in Greece. The members are also concerned with putting the local struggles into a global context and linking them to the revolution of Rojava. For example, an internationalist also took part in the summer seminar on Social Ecology in Agrafa and reported on the ecological ideas and perspectives of the revolution.

The three pillars of Democratic Confederalism

The main interest of the participants of yesterday's event was the practical implementation of the paradigm and the three pillars of Democratic Confederalism: radical democracy, women's liberation and ecology. The three speakers talked about the current situation, the system of the communes, the different organizations, the women's village JinwarJineoloji and the ecological problems, but also achievements of the revolution. At the end they referred to the internationalist campaigns "Make Rojava Green Again" and "RiseUp4Rojava". In addition, the women from the "Women Defend Rojava" Committee of Athens presented their work and motivated people to join their works.