In response to the US troop withdrawal from Syria, decided by the President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and in anticipation of the impending military attack of the free people in Rojava that this deal enables, we consider it urgent and necessary to state the following:
1. – The Commune of Rojava represents the first political, anti-capitalist project in the Middle East that, based on Democratic Confederalism, promotes an alternative understanding of social organisation, which is based on non-state autonomy, self-determination, direct democracy and the fight to patriarchy. The autonomy of Rojava is a possible utopian world where interculturality, different and righteous gender relations and respect for Mother Eart are developed day by day. Rojava demonstrates that we must not resign ourselves to the atrocities in our time.
2. – The first result of the struggle for autonomy in Rojava has been holding back the Islamic State and its fundamentalism. Today, this deal undermines the efforts made by the Kurdish militants, jeopardizing the important achievements YPG and YPJ made against IS in Southern Syria to date. As a matter of fact, Kurdish forces will have to relocate in order to protect Rojava’s northern border from the Turkish invasion.
3. – The war against the autonomy of Rojava, which was built on the ruins of the Syrian State, has been going on systematically for years: attacks and invasions have been the norm. Following the U.S. military forces withdrawal from the Turkish-Syrian border, this threat becomes more dangerous, and Turkey’s hostility towards those who fight for democracy turns into a real chance of genocide.
For these reasons, us signers of this declaration – scholars, students, activists, social and political organisations, people coordinating and in resistance – express our solidarity with the struggle of Kurds and people of Northern Syria, and shout our anger at this latest capitalist and patriarchal attack from the Turkish State, which is happening in the loud and complicit silence of the European Union and international organisations, and demonstrates how Human Rights are only defended when they obey the laws of the markets.
Defending Rojava means defending those who resist every day, in the Middle East as in every other part of the world, against the advancing atrocities. This declaration is a cry of rage, indignation and solidarity with our Kurdish brothers and sisters, who fight and die in the name of freedom and democracy.
Que viva la vida! Que muera la muerte!
Rojava is not alone!
In solidarity
John Holloway, Sergio Tischler, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, Calos Figeroa, Jerome Baschet, Noam Chomsky, Sylvia Marcos, Jean Robert, David Harvey, Arjun Appadurai, Etienne Balibar, Teodor Shanin, Barbara Duden, Michael Hardt, Marina Sitrin, Carole Pateman, Donna Haraway, Raquel Gutierrez, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Federica Giardini, Dora Maria Hernandez Holguin, Francesca Gargallo, Giacomo Marramao, Alfonso Garcia Vela, Roberto Xavier Ochoa Gabaldón, Vittorio Sergi, Aldo Zanchetta, Lucia Linsalata, Kathleen Bryson, David Graeber, Edith Gonzales, Gustavo Esteva, Raul Zibechi, Alexandros Kioupkiolis, Paolo Vernaglione Berardi, Anna Rosa, Antonio Lucci, Luigi Sonnefeld, Fabio Milana, Mina Lorena Navarro, Scott crow, Umberto Franchi, Imanol Antonio, García Verges, Luis Menéndez Bardamo, Elaine Santos, Arturo Escobar, Joan Martinezalier, Viviana Asara, Ines Duran Matute, Jill Rease, Alberto Bonnet, Sergio Uribe, Paola Rafanelli, Juan Miguel Ortiz Reparaz, Esther Patricia King Davalos, Francisco Javier Villanueva Vázquez, Daniele Fini, Giuseppe Lo Brutto, Cecilia Zeledón, Màrgara Millán, Luisa Riley, Raúl Ornelas, Daniel Inclán, Rita Laura Segato, Raffaele K. Salinari, Philippe Corcuff, Roberto Giovannini, Angela Micheli, Maurizio Pallante, Larisa de Orbe, Jorge Alonso Sánchez, Evelyn Fox Keller, Balam Pineda Puente, Dalia Morales, Juan Wahren, Mercedes Escamilla, Juan Carlos Mijangos Noh
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