/95/ The Fall of Rojava? ft. Dani Ellis / Alexander Norton

Rojava offered the hope that a progressive, multiethnic politics might be salvaged from the ashes of Syria’s civil war. Now the Turkish assault on northern Syria looks set to crush the Kurds and a radical experiment in the region. 

We talk to two British volunteers in Rojava about the prospects that the political structures set up there might be saved. 

• Dani Ellis (@lapinesque): engineer; civil defence volunteer, International Commune (@communeint) 
• Alexander Norton: deputy features editor, Morning Star; revolutionary volunteer, International Freedom Battalion

Running order

• 05:27 - Dani interview 
• 41:39 - Alexander interview
• 01:27:51 - Final discussion

Readings & Links:

• Internationalist Commune
• Rojava Information Center
• America abandons the Kurds, Tom Stevenson, LRB
• Russia and Turkey reach deal on Syrian border, Financial Times
• European leftists are rejecting the Kurds over their reliance on the US. It is just another disgusting betrayal, Slavoj Zizek, The Independent
• "Turkey Is Reviving Islamic State in Rojava", Rosa Burç & Kerem Schamberger, Jacobin

Glossary:

• YPG: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People's Defence Corps); PYD’s armed wing in Syria 
• YPJ: Yekîneyên Parastina Jin (Women's Protection Units); all-female militia
• PYD: Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (Democratic Union Party); Syrian Kurdish affiliate of the PKK
• SDF: Syrian Democratic Forces; alliance composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian/Syriac militias, led by the YPG
• PKK: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Workers' Party); Kurdish party in Turkey founded in 1978 by Abdullah Öcalan. Started armed insurgency in 1984, thousands of fighters in northern Iraq and Turkey
• IFB: International Freedom Battalion; armed group of foreign leftists fighting for the YPG in support of the Rojava Revolution 
• MLKP: Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, Turkey
• TEV-DEM: Movement for a Democratic Society; umbrella organisation in northern Syria, aims at organising Syrian society within the democratic confederalist system

/34/ War Propaganda ft. Tara McCormack

In which we laugh at The Times' hatchet job with one of its targets & wonder what the West's endgame is in Syria

/19/ New Clarity? ft. Michael Brooks

In which we chat new alt-media, the US left, and Trump's Middle East policy

Episode 16: Aung San Suu Kyi ain’t what she used to be

In which we learn about Burmese Buddhist nationalism, escalating violence against Muslims, and what happened to the West's liberal hero

Episode 12: Russia Stole My Picnic Basket

In which we scratch our heads at Russophobia. Plus, strong male role models: Engels, Putin, and the Night King(?!)

Episode 3: Milking the Kurds

Episode Three: In which we ask what's up with the new 'International Brigades' joining the Kurds, and venture a Spanish pronunciation of 'Rojava'.