Practical Solidarity With Rojava
We received this message slightly too late to be shared at our Rojava screening but it is insightful and practical so we wanted to share it here. It comes from Jo at A Girl and Her Thumb.
So obviously the biggest news is that Turkey has invaded Rojava under the pretext of fighting ISIS, and is instead killing Kurds (as usual), including unarmed civilians in Rojava who are protesting the building of a new wall that Turkey is erecting along the border, between North Kurdistan (East Turkey/Bakur) and West Kurdistan (North Syria/Rojava).
It’s important that we stand up and take action on this. Turkey is a NATO member and our government is permitting this to happen. If we want Rojava to survive, this is the time to act. It has never been as important as this before. There is a new strategic alliance between Erdogan, the USA, Assad, Iran and Barzani (KRG/Iraqi Kurdistan) ALLLLL against Rojava and the wider Kurdish movement. These people and states all hate each other, but they are coming together to fight the Kurds.
Another important campaign is the campaign to free Ocalan. There are currently 50 people from multiple Kurdish parties and platforms on an “indefinite and irreversable” hunger strike. They are really ramping up the pressure on this one now, as Ocalan has been entirely cut off from absolutely everyone for something like 2 years now. The other day I met 2 men who have been on hunger strike for over a week already in Strasbourg, who were on their way to a meeting with the European committee against torture. They want them to apply to visit Ocalan on Imrali island and check his condition, as all other applications from lawyers, etc have been denied. There have also been fringe meetings at all the big trade union meetings, with the aim of getting the trade unions to sign up as supporters of the campaign. I believe this process is going very well.
There are also other campaigns, such as the campaign to delist the PKK and the campaign to open the Simalka border crossing, previously the only open border into Rojava, in order to allow vital supplies of food and medicines to enter.
You can also still fundraise for Feed the Revolution. I have their bank details, though they very much prefer cryptocurrency as they “don’t like to encourage the use of banks”.
- Project info: https://coopfunding.net/en/campaigns/feed-the-revolution/
- Donation info: http://rojavaplan.com/donate.html
- More info: http://www.weareplanc.org/blog/feed-the-revolution-an-interview-with-rojava-plan/
On a smaller level, these are a couple of interesting articles about things people are doing in solidarity on the coops front:
One coop has partnered up with a bakery coop starting up in Rojava and they are fundraising specifically for that coop.
There is going to be this conference here in Brighton in November that might interest people:
http://steps-centre.org/events/emancipatory-transformations-radical-democracy-kurdistan/