Islamic State, imperialism and Rojava.

So the Syrian civil war was definitely a popular uprising, the vast majority of the Syrians desperately wanting to rid themselves of Assad. The revolution in Syria erupted as a response to rebellions across the Middle East, most notably the toppling of the Egyptian dictator Mubarak. Syria has a longstanding claim to be the cradle of Arab nationalism with Damascus being the centre of resistance against Ottoman rule during the First World War. Out of this struggle came the demand for a Pan-Arab state that was to be headed by Faisal Husayn of the house of Hashim and ruled from Damascus. As the Ottoman Empire started to disintegrate, this state was proclaimed in 1920, much against the wishes of the imperialist powers France and Britain, who had laid out their own plans for the Middle-East in a secret agreement in 1916, called Sykes-Picot . Faisal was side-lined and appeased (the British making him king of Iraq) and Syria sliced up, being placed under a French mandate by the League of Nations.
Self-determination had been paid lip-service in Europe, but in the Middle East and Africa the imperialists continued with their business as usual.
Having some knowledge of this background can help us understand how random and selective the borders are within the region. Rather than being the result of local development or self-emancipation, these borders were imposed, enforced and then consolidated, a product of imperial interests reflecting global power relations. That these artificial creations (notions of nations) are now unravelling, can in no way surprise anyone.

As in Egypt, the success of the Syrian uprising depended not only on the local balance of power, but just as well on the foreign influence in the region. Russia had always been a staunch supporter of the Assad regime, arming it and shielding it from criticism in the United Nations, in exchange for access to the Mediterranean, fulfilling a long entrenched Russian longing. Syria’s relationship with the West was complex and riddled with contradictions. Officially, Syria was a threat, an enemy even, at war with Israel and denouncing Western involvement in the region. Beneath the surface however, both the Israeli’s and the Americans were cautious about possible regime change in Damascus. What would replace this iron dictatorship that sometimes barked, but never really bit, anxious to preserve its own continued existence? Assad’s regime was tolerated and in exchange it never fully developed its anti-Western rhetoric or translated this into action.

There were other obstacles to the success of the revolution, turning it into a bloody and prolonged conflict with sectarian divides and foreign intervention looming on the horizon. Assad had long ruled through divide and conquer policies along sectarian lines. Himself a member of the Alawite Shia minority, his regime (and his father’s before him) relied heavily on nepotism and an intricate, well developed system of political clientelism, underpinned with violence, secret services and ultimately force. The silencing of the official political opposition had caused it to operate underground, secretly or confined to its large international diaspora. Assad’s main argument from the very outset of the Syrian uprising insisted on the radically religious character of the rebels. He was ‘fighting terrorism’ in Syria, rather than dealing with the latest chapter in the Arab Spring. Of course, this rhetoric came right out of the ‘war on terror’ phrasebook. As soon as terrorism is mentioned, the use of force is justified. It even sanctions the use of torture, as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib have proven.

The Syrian conflict has of course spilled well beyond the borders of the CFKAS. One of the forces to emerge from the civil war has been ISIS (Islamic State Iraq and Syria – or the Levant), armed to the teeth, arguably as a result of Western and Gulf finance. As of late, evidence seems to emerging that IS can also count the Turkish state as their benefactor. We will comment on that relationship later on.

ISIS’ advances have been spectacular, especially in Iraq, the country that the Bush administration had selected to be a model democratic state after removing its dictator Saddam Hussein. In reality, Iraq had become more unstable, more unsafe and more divided along sectarian lines than at any time during the reign of Saddam. Sunnis had felt disenfranchised and some of them rallied to ISIS. The Iraqi army, trained funded and armed by American and British troops crumbled in the face of the advancing self-proclaimed Jihadists, leaving behind their sophisticated heavy weaponry for ISIS to pick up.

Another force to emerge out of Syria’s conflict is the Kurdish ‘state’ of Rojava. The Kurds are a stateless people, being left without self-determination by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, in spite of promises to the contrary. Since that time the Kurds have exercised considerable influence throughout the Middle-East, forming minorities in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. In some cases they have been in direct conflict with the state, as in Turkey, whose successive governments have a grim record of suppressing the Kurds and their aspirations.

Since the end of the Gulf War in 1991 the Kurds of Iraq have enjoyed effective autonomy in the North of that country. They have established their own leadership and are exporting oil from big production centres like Kirkuk. With the crumbling of the Syrian nation state Kurds have now been able to join forces, with Iraqi, Syrian and even Turkish Kurds, working together to establish self-rule and defend their communities against the Syrian, Iraqi and Turkish governments, who are all unhappy with these developments. The reason this struggle is now at the centre of our attention is that Kurdish Peshmerga forces are effectively the only boots on the ground holding back the advance of ISIS. Their people’s militia have defended Kurdish villages and towns, with ISIS deploying high tech weaponry. And while part of this weaponry was seized from the fleeing Iraqi forces, there are widespread rumours about other sources of support for the self-proclaimed Jihadis without a face. Gulf finance? Turkish logistical and financial support? Is ISIS a proxy force, advancing the agenda of regional powers? Surely, the Turkish state does not want to see a self-sufficient, well-armed Kurdish community evolve to its south. And while international pressure and Kurdish activism around the world is forcing the Turks to move, their response has been accommodating to ISIS, with reports of ISIS fighters freely crossing the border with Turkey, being treated in Turkish hospitals and even an ISIS recruiting campaign surfacing in numerous Turkish cities.

There is another reason why the Kurds are being left. And that reason is to be found in the nature and organisation of their communities in Rojava. These communities are explicitly egalitarian, a social experiment based on self-participation, modelled on the Zapatista’s in Mexico. Although relatively new and thus vulnerable (as the current situation in Rojava shows) these communities have established gender equality and have produced a people’s charter, guaranteeing freedom of religion and civil rights, providing an alternative, not only to the sectarianism and religious strife surrounding Rojava, but also to the idea that the Middle-East must somehow be ‘liberated’ by Western bombing and intervention. Already the developments in Rojava are generating international solidarity and support, a rallying cause around which the hopeful beginnings of the Arab Spring can spread further, deepen and eventually transform the region. There are two forces bent on preventing this from being successful: 1) global imperial interests, that fare well by a divided and torn region and 2) local elites who are inextricably linked to those interests. The future of the region hangs in the balance. It is because of this we must organise solidarity for Rojava. It is because of this the Kurdish struggle is a struggle for more than just ‘self-determination’. It might even show the rest of the world what real liberation can look like.