Fear and Loathingin in Northern Syria

Let's assume that this is a fictional story, and that anything resembling reality is pure coincidence. It's barely an hour after midnight, it's freezing cold and the flames of the excess gas from the extraction of crude light up this moonless night. Ahmet works at the Tarhin refinery north of al-Bab, smuggling black gold into …

Resistance diaries: a letter from the frontlines against the turkish ocupation of Rojava

A combat jet passes in low flight over the city of Til Temir, making the windows of the houses vibrate, where Kurds, Arabs and Assyrians coexist in this arid city located today few kilometers of the front. When the blazing sound of the engine passes, the crying of a baby is the first thing to …

[Interview] A year in the Internationalist Commune of Rojava

Source: Guilhotina.The Internationalist Academy was baptized with the name of martyr Hêlîn Qereçox, also know as Anna Campbell. We spoke with Rok Brossa, Catalan internationalist and member of the Internationalist Commune of Rojava. We discussed internationalism in the XXI century, the experiences of Rok during the year he was in Rojava supporting the Democratic Federation …

What has happened in Afrin? A guide to understand the Middle East puzzle

Afrin has become the scene of the latest episode of the bloody war in Syria. After two months of intense resistance, the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces, a multiethnic militia led by the Kurdish YPJ/YPG] have withdrawn from the city that gives its name to the Afrin Canton so as to ensure that civilians have an …

From capitalist modernity to democratic modernity

It’s common to hear internationalist groups and collectives talk about ‘democratic confederalism’ referred to as the ideological paradigm of the Kurdish Liberation Movement. Despite the fact that this concept has been useful to understand the ideological evolution of the movement, it remains somewhat incomplete, and it may be more appropriate to talk about Democratic Modernity. …

Reflections about man, masculinity and patriarchal society

Notes for a historic-subjective analysis on the construction and the evolution of the ‘man’ identity in the patriarchal society The cultural construction of gender has been developed in different ways throughout history, and although all societies have gender cultural registries, not all of them have the concept of masculinity. A culture which does not treat …