Andrew Sage

So you had the Syrian Democratic Council or the SDC led primarily by the PYD, right?

Yeah.

They were taken on the task of both fighting the Islamists while engaged in an ideological project to bring democratic confederalism into practice in North Syria.

So democratic confederalism is a transitional political movement that tries to move beyond the nation state by refusing to seize state power.

Instead of organizing society through the state,

They seek to organize society through local assemblies that manage their own affairs while coordinating action through confederations.

Democratic and federalism emphasizes pluralism over nationalism and secularism over religious government and restorative justice, gender liberation, ecological sustainability, cooperative and communal economic forms.

Democratic and federalism was seen as a pragmatic way of building collective self-organization

within the purview of the existing dominant state model of the world, while gradually undermining its authority.

Now, the gender liberation component in particular has received a lot of international attention thanks to the PYD's efforts to put it into practice.

They established gender parity quotas in all administrative, political, and decision-making bodies and leadership roles.

They established women's councils to address women's issues.

They established the Women's Protection Unit, or YPJ, which is an all-female army, which is very popular organization.

And they established laws to ban honor killings and child marriage while strengthening the divorce rights of women.

So these efforts and others within Rojava have garnered worldwide admiration for the project.

And many international volunteers have visited Rojava to help them fight.

And if you're in a lot of online anarchist circles, you've probably heard a lot about Rojava and solidarity with the Libericia.

But I think it has created a misconception that the solidarity that anarchists feel with Rojava is equivalent to one-to-one ideological alignment.

What they're doing is not anarchism.

It's kind of its own thing.