QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Rojava Revolution, or as the Kurds of Syria call it “July 19 Revolution”, can be considered as a social coup against the Syrian reality that lasted for decades and resulted in the onset of protests under the name of “Arabic Spring”.
In 2011 the people of Syria took to the streets thinking that they could do what their peers in Tunisia and Egypt did. However, their calculations were wrong and the foundations of their onset were fragile. As a result, Syria endured an armed conflict. Both parties to the conflict; the Syrian government forces and the factions of the armed opposition backed by Turkey, committed crimes and massacres, caused destruction of the infrastructure and displacement and emigration of the citizens.
July 19 Revolution
The northern and northeastern area of the Syrian geography, that is called Rojava by the Kurds which means Western Kurdistan, chose another path. On July 19, 2012, the Kurds managed to expel the intelligence and military forces of the Syrian government from the cities of Afrin, Kobani, and Qamishli in addition to their countryside. The beginning was in Kobani.
In 2013, civil institutions were established in all cities, towns and villages to run the affairs of the people. And in 2014, the Autonomous Administration was announced in the cities of Qamishli, Kobani and Afrin. Then it expanded to the cities of Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, and Deir ez-Zor after the defeat of ISIS in 2019. The final shape that was announced that was named the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
The “July 19 Revolution” has carried with it national dimensions and modern criteria without being inward-looking or mired in nationalism and motives of revenge. It has drown its own path based on the democratic ideology to be a pioneer of change and draw a better future for a multicultural and democratic Syria.
It is important to mention the intellectual basis of any revolution because it directs the compass and evaluates the performance. Therefore, the French Revolution is seen as one of the prominent ones in the modern era due to the marks of Rousseau and Voltaire, and the October Revolution also was a Russian interpretation of the philosophy of Karl Marx. Similarly, so to speak, the ideology of Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) who is serving a life sentence in prison in Turkey, has become the basis on which the July 19 Revolution was launched, where the overthrow of the authority was not the goal. Counter-terrorism has been a priority. It has sought to differentiate between the homeland, the regime and the state.
Third-way option
The July 19 Revolution which was led by the PYD concentrated on establishing a ‘third way’ – neither pro-government nor pro-opposition. It saw the governments in Damascus and Ankara as equally dangerous. Both the Syrian government and its opposition are looking forward to bring the crisis to an end according to their own interests without taking the hopes of the Syrians into account. They consider the AANES as a separatist project. They both share the same position towards the Kurds, that is hostility.
“We found ourselves between two parties fighting over power, one is in power and does not want to give up, and the other seeks to extract this power. We found ourselves neither power holder nor power claimer,” said Saleh Muslim, co-head of the PYD.
In an exclusive statement to North Press, Muslim said they have sought to organize the ranks of the people “because the third way depends on the will of the people and democracy.”
Over the years, it was proven that the Kurds – led by the PYD – are the most organized. They could understand the details of the situation, and on that basis, they started organizing themselves militarily, politically, and socially to liberate the Kurdish-majority areas from the government forces and the Islamist factions.
“We organized the ranks of the people in all social and economic aspects, including legitimate self-defense,” Muslim noted.
Government-opposition hostile rhetoric
However, the AANES-held areas have not been immune to the attempts of the Turkish-backed opposition factions that have kept targeting them and accusing the AANES of affiliation with the Syrian government. The Syrian government on the other side, has kept adopting anti-AANES rhetoric accusing it of betrayal.
In contrast, the AANES does not consider any other Syrian party as an enemy, so that it has kept adopting a peaceful approach. It has presented several initiatives for the political solution of the Syrian crisis, the last of which was in April when the AANES launched an initiative called the Peaceful Resolution of the Syrian Crisis. The initiative consisted of nine articles including the preservation of the integrity of the Syrian territory, the recognition of the legitimate rights of all the people of the Syrian community, the fair distribution of the natural sources, the establishment of the democratic system, the end of the Turkish occupation, and the return of the Syrian refugees, and other articles.
Although the July 19 Revolution was started by the Kurds and that the Kurds were its backbone, it is no longer Kurdish. It has gone through a qualitative change with the expansion of its geographic territory and the deepening of its content. The revolution has become pure Syrian as it embraces all the Syrians with all their national, religious and ethnic affiliations.