The 6th and 7th of September were the first days of action for the international campaigns #RiseUp4Rojava and #WomenDefendRojava, with people mobilising for the revolution and its achievements in a number of countries across the world. Here we republish three messages sent by the Internationalist Commune of Rojava, the Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Alliance, and Plan C and the Kurdistan Solidarity Network, which were read at each others’ mobilisations and demonstrations across the world.
From the Internationalist Commune of Rojava
Dear friends, dear comrades,
From the Heart of the Revolution in the Middle East, from the Internationalist Commune, we send our solidarity and love to those taking to the streets all over the planet.
Around the revolution in Kurdistan a new internationalist movement and network has emerged in the last years, whose expression we can see today on the streets from Sweden to Greece, from Germany to UK, from Catalunya to Austria and in Brazil, amongst many other countries. What has emerged is not just a movement, it is a new spirit, a new hope and a renewed courage. The liberation of women and society, the building of thousands of communes and cooperatives showed to the hundred thousands of us that another world is possible!
The sacrificial struggle of the self-defence forces against the Islamic State and Turkish fascism has filled us with pride and it put warmth in our hearts. Thousands followed the call for revolution and became directly active on the ground. The loss of friends who died in the struggle for freedom were and continue to be a painful experience. But with all the pain, with each fallen comrade, the revolution was able to become even bigger.
With the ongoing success of the revolution, Erdogan’s threats of further major military attacks on Northern Syria, with the aim of total annihilation of the revolution, are increasing. And the war is already going on. The Kurdish guerrilla is demonstrating a huge resistance against the Turkish occupation of South Kurdistan and against the attacks on the people of North Kurdistan and Turkey.
Every day, the Turkish soldiers are firing their weapons, and NATO is providing the ammunition. The European, Russian and USA weapon industries become richer day by day as a direct result of the wars in the Middle East. They make profits which cost millions of lives.
By blocking Rheinmetall in Germany, the arms fair in London, making actions against SSAB in Sweden or against Leonardo in Italy, the International Action Days are a good starting point to expand our actions, to connect them and internationalise them. The war in Kurdistan starts on our doorsteps, let’s stop it there and cut its supplies!
When looking at the International Action Days and the riseup4rojava campaign, without doubt we can say, the antifascism of our times is internationalist. Together we can establish a second front against Turkish fascism and imperialism in the Middle East.
With this in mind, we wish everyone success on their actions and we look forward to seeing and sharing pictures of them, as a testimony of the existing international solidarity in the world, facing capitalist modernity.
Let us shout: An Serkeftin! An Serkeftin! Biji berxwedana Efrine! Biji berxwedana Rojava! Biji berxwedana gerîla!
For the RiseUp4Rojava campaign,
Silav u rez,
From the Internationalist Commune of Rojava.
From the Rheinmetall Entwaffnen Alliance
Dear friends, dear comrades,
We send our warm greetings to all of you who are taking to the streets today against war and for peace. The news that actions are taking place in so many countries such as Sweden, Australia, Austria, Switzerland, Brazil, Italy and England this weekend on the International Action Days “RiseUp4Rojava – Smash turkish fascism” has filled us with joy and gives us confidence that a peaceful world is not just possible, but that we are already beginning to build it.
We, the RheinmetallEntwaffnen Alliance, have been at the gates of Rheinmetall, one of Germany’s biggest arms producers, in Unterlüß for days now. At our anti-militaristic camp, we discuss together a world without war, argue about contradictions and build connections. We try to lead a collective life, with many different people, groups and initiatives, exactly in the place where the weapons for war and death are made. Because Rheinmetall exports weapons all over the world, does not hesitate to equip fascist regimes and at the same time profits from the fortification and armament at the borders of Europe. The Turkish regime also occupied the Afrin region in Rojava, Syria with weapons from Rheinmetall, including the Leopard II tank, killing thousands of people and displacing tens of thousands.
The deal with death is a worldwide network, a military-economic complex, which extends from production, sales and transport to deployment. A network of regimes, companies like Rheinmetall and Warlords, from suppliers to logistics companies. If we want to stop this operation, disarm the arms companies, build a world without war and exploitation, we need links between many different forms of actions, initiatives, groups and movements around the world. From peace movements to feminist struggles, climate strikes to anti-imperialist movements.
These connections already exist and become visible in these days, so we send our warm greetings to our comrades and friends in London who are protesting against one of the biggest arms fairs in Europe. Because in London, too, the weapons of Rheinmetall and all the major weapons producers are on show, war and death are advertised. We greet the activists in Munich who are demonstrating today in front of Mercedes against its deliveries to the Erdogan regime and for a radical, climate-friendly change in the transportation system! And we remember all the people who lost and gave their lives in the war, all the people we knew and all the people whose names we do not know.
Together we build a world without war!
Long live International Solidarity!
From Plan C & the Kurdistan Solidarity Network
Dear Friends, comrades and siblings,
We in Plan C, the Kurdistan Solidarity Network, Women’s Strike Assembly UK, and, of course, the UK Kurdish People’s and Women’s assemblies, the Kurdistan Students’ Union, the Revolutionary Youth Movement and the Democratic Union of progressive Kurdish and Turkish associations, send our deep solidarity without limits to the RheinmetallEntwaffnen Alliance rising up for Rojava this weekend. As you struggle against Rheinmetall, and we against the DSEI arms fair, we take heart that across the world people are rising up to defend the revolution and its achievements, seeing in Rojava and across Kurdistan the hope of another possible world, and recognising the importance of our struggle in the Global North to realise this possibility for a free life everywhere.
We are mobilising as part of the Stop the Arms Fair coalition, and each day different groups have come together to show how their struggles meet in a single fight against militarism and the arms trade – from Palestine to Bahrain, from religious groups to secular ones, from climate justice to migrants’ rights. We may come from different backgrounds, and our particular needs may differ too, but the system that violently exploits and dominates us is one and the same. The DSEI arms fair provides weapons, equipment and connections for states and corporations worldwide, from Hong Kong to Turkey, supplying the militarised police forces that crush workers’ and popular resistance, the tanks and airplanes that bombed and occupied Afrin, and even already illegal weapons like cluster bombs for openly authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia.
Over the week, as acts of resistance are carried out by different groups, the protest camp is a space to discuss the democratic world we will build on the ruins of capitalist modernity – a world of liberated genders, beyond the nation-state’s violent assault on society, where we collectively and cooperatively develop a free and equal life in ecological balance with the world around us. This was the liberated, democratic modernity for which our revolutionary martyrs struggled and fell – martyrs like Anna Campbell, Sehid Helin Qerecox, who resisted the arms fair in 2015, while the Turkish state delegation inside negotiated the contract for the F-16s that killed Anna and her comrades in the genocidal invasion of Afrin.
So as we give practical meaning this weekend to the slogan ‘Resistance is Life’ our martyrs will be in our hearts, and our friends, comrades and siblings across the world will be our strength. Our common struggle will smash the nation-state system, global capital, empire and all its borders, from DSEI through Rheinmetall all the way to Kurdistan.
Long live revolutionary internationalism!
Forwards to a free life everywhere!
Jin, jîyan azadî!
