In order to be able to accurately interpret current events, conflicts and developments in Rojava and the Middle East, but also globally, it is necessary to name the phase in which the global political system finds itself, taking into account the historical dimension. The core characteristic of this development, which Abdullah Ocalan, initiator of the Kurdish freedom movement and the revolution in Rojava, describes as a third world war, are conflicts between hegemonic and regional powers for the expansion of influence. Different alliances are forged and break up depending on the hoped-for gains. Hegemonic powers support local proxy armies to enforce their interests and war is progressively legitimized as a means to enforce the interests of state actors. The third world war is as well, a war between these forces of power accumulation and the forces of the people and societies, struggling for a life on their land. These conflicts have different expressions and their difference in form as well as the attempt of the hegemonic regimes to defame them often make them hard to identify.

In this analysis we want to highlight events and processes that emerge around this frame. Starting with an overview on power-dynamics in the global scale, we are going to look closer at the war of culture as a means of the hegemonic powers to bring societies under their control, especially focusing on the Middle East. On this basis, we will more broadly analyze the different aspects of the war being waged in Kurdistan.

We’ll see you in Berlin on November 18, 2023 at 11am at Oranienplatz!

We call for participation in the protest of the Kurdish Freedom Movement to ensure that Germany ceases to be an hinterland for Turkish fascism. The participation of the German state and its arms industry in Turkish imperialism and expansionism, under the leadership of NATO, is a crime!

Let’s not give Erdogan the opportunity to gather support for his brutal war in Kurdistan!
No quiet Hinterland for Turkish Fascism!

While the Israeli army has been committing carnage in Gaza since the Hamas assault on October 7, and a ground intervention has just begun, Turkey’s autocrat President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been particularly conspicuous by his presence. First as a potential “mediator” between the Israeli government and Hamas, then – as Israeli strategy seemed to take on ever more clearly genocidal contours – as a staunch defender of the Palestinian cause.

Kobanê will not fall! Just 9 years ago, as the city was encircled by the forces of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, whose advance had been lightning-fast, a day of international mobilization was organized in support of the Kurdish resistance. On November 1, 2014, millions of people rise up around the world to express their support for Kobanê and denounce the international community’s inaction and the collusion of certain states with Daesh.

A decisive turning point in the war waged by the self-defense forces of the Federation of North and East Syrian (YPG/YPJ), the battle of Kobanê was a few months later the first major setback suffered by the Islamic State. It marked the beginning of its retreat and eventual downfall.
The fierceness of the fighting and the resulting loss of human life made the heroic resistance of the self-defense forces a symbol of global resistance against the forces of reaction. A modern-day Stalingrad, this battle will forever be remembered as the one that changed the course of the war in Syria and the Middle East.
This battle, and the subsequent liberation of the Syrian northeast, was the triumph of a self- administrated, democratic, ecological, multi-ethnic and multicultural project founded on women’s freedom against a fundamentalist and fascist order.