Solidarity with the Rojava revolution

In the face of the fascist Turkish state’s genocidal war on the people of Northern Syria and the unashamed complicity of western states, worldwide solidarity with Rojava has been impressive. Countless demonstrations, pickets, blockades and actions have exposed and targetted governments and corporations actively supporting and arming the atrocities being perpetrated by Erdogan’s military and his IS / Jihadist allies. Antifascists and revolutionaries everywhere recognise the need to stand together with the Rojava revolution. Biji Berxwedana Rojava!

The revolution in Northeast Syria will prevail, fascism will be smashed!

At 4pm on October 9th, the Turkish occupation army and its Islamist allies began their long-prepared war of aggression against the liberated areas of northern Syria.

At four o’clock sharp in the afternoon, bombs rained down on people in towns and villages on the border. Jihadist militias began their advance under the leadership of the Turkish army and tried to penetrate into the border area. Turkey is talking about a “military operation” aimed at “securing the border” and establishing a so-called “peace corridor”, but the fact is that the Turkish army and the Islamist mercenaries under its command are concerned with nothing less than the occupation of the mostly Kurdish populated entire area along the Turkish-Syrian border. The regime in Ankara speaks of the “fight against terrorism” and emphasizes that their war of aggression is not about the war on the civilian population, but indiscriminate bombing of civilian settlements, looting and mass deportations of hundreds of thousands of people, arbitrary executions and the brutal abduction of hundreds of civilians speak a different language. The further the war against northern Syria progresses, the more it becomes clear, what Erdogan is really about, namely ethnic cleansing through the violent expulsion of millions of people and the long-term demographic change of the entire region.

In the north of Syria, in the shadow of the Syrian civil war, a revolutionary and democratic social project has thrived in the past seven years that has been a thorn in the side of the region’s powers and imperialist states from the very beginning. The societies of Northeastern Syria established their own self-government and created an oasis of peace, based on the equal coexistence of all groups of the local population, the liberation of women, an ecological economy and radical democracy. The Democratic Federation of Northeast Syria has become a living example of a peaceful and democratic future for the Middle East, beyond local despotism and foreign rule. Finally, the defense forces of the peoples of northeastern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, succeeded in smashing the last remnants of the Turkish-based IS caliphate.

Today, Islamist militias, most of them fighters of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, are advancing again with the Turkish occupation offensive in northern Syria and spreading fear and terror. The states of the International Coalition, above all the United States of America, have paved the way for the Turkish war of aggression with their coordinated withdrawal of troops. They gave away their former allies to destruction and sacrificed the peoples of northeastern Syria to their filthy interests. The states of the world have agreed to close their eyes while the Turkish occupation army and its jihadists are committing a genocide with NATO weapons.

But we will not stand by and witness in silence the massacres that take place in the eyes of the world today. Only a broad and resistant anti-war movement will stop this war. Just as people were pouring worldwide into the streets against the Vietnam War or the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the conscience of humankind must rise in revolt today in the face of the Turkish barbarism in northern Syria.

On November 1st, 2014, millions of people around the entire world took to the streets for a day to express their solidarity with the heroic resistance of Kobanê. We call for this year’s November 2nd to be a day of global resistance against the Turkish War of Aggression, to break the normal situation and to paralyze life. Participate in creative and diverse actions of civil disobedience, demonstrations, and many more, and take over the streets and public spaces.

As long as the killing continues, the resistance must not stop.

Riseup4Rojava

Women defend Rojava

Internationalist Commune of Rojava

Bristol Kurdish Solidarity Network

CALL TO ACTION AGAINST FASCISM & ANTI-SEMITISM: 25 OCTOBER – 9 NOVEMBER

In the year since our first call to action, we have lost over one hundred lives to white terror. But we have also found each other. And we are many more than we first thought.

But people are still dying — people like us and people not like us – and others held captive in camps and cages. And to the anti-Semitic violence sweeping the West, the ruling class has no answer. Each and every attack on our people has been used to justify new police powers, and to pit us one against the other.

In the fighting spirit of last year’s International Days of Action, and of centuries of Jewish popular struggle, we are calling for people everywhere to join us in a second global wave of action:  two weeks of resistance and revolt against the far right, two weeks of total non-cooperation with the institutions, the political parties, and the private enterprises that collaborate with them.

Beginning the weekend of 25 October, around the one-year anniversary of the Tree of Life pogrom in the USA, the actions will continue through the weekend of 9 November, marking one month since the attempted pogrom in Halle as well as 81 years since Kristallnacht.

We see today, as we have seen before, organized violence – sanctioned by the state, blessed by the church, funded and defended by the ruling class – directed against ethnoracial, religious, sexual, and gender minorities. But today we are fighting back, as we always have. And together we say that an attack on any of us is an attack on all of us.

This call is therefore also a call to solidarity with peoples everywhere struggling for life and for freedom:  from Brazil to Burma, Catalunya to Chile, China to Ecuador to Egypt, Germany to Greece to Iraq, Kashmir to Kurdistan, Lebanon to Palestine, Poland to Russia, Sudan to United States and beyond.

As our comrades from Pittsburgh, USA remind us:

“Even in the most challenging moments, we can learn from the choices and traditions of our ancestors to imagine what resistance and healing can look like today. We as Jews can claim our unique history of anti-fascist resistance and use it to inspire our current struggle against anti-semitism, white nationalism, and fascism. We hope this time of commemoration offers us all space for both healing and fighting back.”

Action Items

  1. Mark your calendars for 25 October – 9 November. Call your own people to action on these dates in solidarity with the Outlive Them International. The Weeks of Action will begin with an anti-fascist Shabbat (called by some of our people in Pittsburgh), and continue through to the International Day of Action on 9 Nov.
  2. Share word of this weekend of action widely. Craft your own call: use or edit our words, images, and resources as you see fit. Translate this call into your language(s) and share it with us, if you are able. Come up with the strategies, targets, and tactics best suited to your own community.
  3. In unity is our strength. Reach out to other groups already resisting the murderous far right in your area or start your own. Organize an action together. Forge connections with other oppressed communities that will endure beyond the International Weeks of Action.
  4. Document your actions and those of the oppressors. Share images, stories, and reports with your social networks using the hashtag #OutliveThem. Then share them with us at wewilloutlivethem@protonmail.com. Please include only as much identifying information as participants consent to give.
  5. Be safe, be smart, and be dangerous. Consider people’s needs, capabilities, and vulnerabilities. Plan lower-risk actions that different people can participate in. People may or may not choose to plan higher-risk actions. We ask that all who answer this call be prepared to support each other in case of arrest, detention, or repression.

WHEREVER WE STAND, WE STAND AGAINST FASCISM
DONDEQUIERA QUE ESTEMOS, DE PIE EN CONTRA DEL FASCISMO
OÙ QUE NOUS SOYONS, DEBOUT CONTRE LE FASCISME
Где бы мы ни стояли, мы против фашизма.
איפה שאנחנו עומדים, אנחנו עומדים נגד פאשיזם
حيثما نقف فنقف ضد الفاشية
GDZIEKOLWIEK JESTEŚMY, JESTEŚMY PRZECIW FASZYZMOWI
AŤ UŽ JSME KDEKOLI, STOJÍME PROTI FAŠISMU
Όπου κι αν είμαστε, είμαστε ενάντια στον φασισμό
ON SIGUEM, DRETS CONTRA EL FEIXISME
ONDE QUER QUE ESTEJAMOS, ESTAMOS CONTRA O FASCISMO

https://twitter.com/outlivethem

Stop the Turkish invason! Rise up for Rojava!

On Sunday night Donald Trump gave Turkish president Erdogan the green light to invade north-east Syria. Run by a Kurdish-led administration on the principles of direct democracy, equality for all peoples, ecological justice, a cooperative economy and women’s liberation, it is the most peaceful and stable part of Syria. The movement leading the administration is the same movement that defeated ISIS with the assistance of the US-led international coalition. They now guard over 70,000 ISIS fighters, families and supporters, but with the minimal resources available conditions are desperate and the situation is fast becoming unsustainable. If the Turkish invasion happens it will be impossible.

Following the removal of Kurdish mayors from Turkey’s Kurdish regions, and expanded invasion of areas under the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq, the Turkish state is looking to expand its racist anti-Kurdish war deeper into northern Syria. This follows the invasion, occupation and ethnic cleansing of Afrin in north-western Syria in January 2018, and puts at risk not only the peace established by the administration’s democratic system, but also the territorial defeat of the ISIS “caliphate”. The Turkish state is known to have bought oil and provided logistical support for ISIS, as well as incorporated ISIS militants in the mercenary forces used to occupy Afrin. The Turkish state cannot be trusted to properly guard or resolve this issue, and an occupation would put at risk not only Kurds but all the people of North-East Syria, including Arabs, Armenians, Chechens, Turkmen, Syriac, Assyrian and Khaldean Christians and Yezidi.

So Trump’s green light will lead to a resurgence of ISIS, genocidal ethnic cleansing and a new refugee crisis. In the process it will destroy Syria’s last hope for a democratic solution beneficial to all its people, as well as one of the most important examples of how to build a truly democratic, ecological and feminist society.

11,000 people gave their lives in the struggle to defeat ISIS, including 10 British citizens, such as Anna Campbell, killed by a Turkish airstrike in Afrin in March last year. We will not ignore their sacrifice, we will #RiseUp4Rojava and stop the war on North-East Syria!

Join us to demonstrate in solidarity with Kurds and all the people of North-East Syria!

https://www.facebook.com/events/934412936917804/
https://www.facebook.com/events/2607334165980151/
https://riseup4rojava.org/
https://www.facebook.com/CommuneInt/