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Ed Webb

How North and East Syria's Autonomous Structures Handle a Pandemic - 0 views

  • North and East Syria faces serious challenges in the fight against COVID-19. 600,000 IDPs and refugees live in camps across the region, their situation already precarious without a pandemic. Ongoing attacks by Turkish forces, Turkey-backed militias, and ISIS complicate the security situation and threaten essential civilian infrastructure like water lines.According to the Rojava Information Center, the region has only one ventilator per 100,000 people, and can handle a maximum of 460 cases before its health system is overrun
  • Strict preventative measures have been in place for weeks to stave off the threat of an outbreak. A lockdown went into force on March 23rd, and has generally been adhered to — and enforced. Border crossings are closed, with exemptions for some humanitarian aid. All individuals entering the region, including travelers from government-held Syria flying into the Qamishlo airport, have been subject to quarantine.
  • Cooperatives form a significant part of North and East Syria’s economy. Material conditions in the region — which for most of its existence has been surrounded by hostile actors — required economic self-sufficiency.
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  • Agricultural cooperatives have also remained active. These provide necessary food, lessening reliance on imports. Northern Syria was the country’s breadbasket prior to the civil war — though centralized governance meant that its people were not able to benefit equitably. The creation of agricultural cooperatives has democratized some of these resources. In total, cooperatives make up an estimated 7% of the economy of Jazira region — with women’s cooperatives contributing to nearly half of that figure.
  • the presence of existing facilities, materials, and workers has clearly enabled North and East Syria to produce more goods faster than equivalent goods could be imported — and to do so without the need for dangerous international travel.
  • cooperatives are more attuned to the needs of the communities their members live in, and thus more likely to make decisions based on need than profit.
  • Recently, the communes have become essential for ensuring that the lockdown can be maintained without undue stress on everyday people. One ANHA report described how the process of food distribution implemented by the Autonomous Administration relies on the local knowledge and small scale of these structures. Communes are responsible for registering lists of names of those who need food assistance — primarily the poor and unemployed. The Social Affairs Commission then supplies food items, which are distributed by the communes.
  • In Fafin district, for example, food was distributed to about 2,000 families, with commune members going from family to family to distribute aid in order to prevent large groups from congregating. About half of these families are displaced Efrîn residents.
  • Like cooperatives, communes allow relief efforts to be both centrally coordinated and based on community needs. Commune members do not need to travel beyond their neighborhoods to distribute aid, lessening the number of people traveling from city to city. Reliable, organized distribution also lessens the likelihood that large groups of people will gather in shops out of fear that they may not get the items they need.
  • democratic confederalist structures with strong popular support have undoubtedly played a key role in helping North and East Syria implement preventative measures
Ed Webb

Syria's Arab and Kurdish women join forces to fight for future - Al-Monitor: the Pulse ... - 0 views

  • As the fight expands beyond Kurdish-dominated areas into Arab-heavy territory, a growing number of Arabs are either directly joining the Syrian Kurdish forces or Arab groups allied with them. They are collectively known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. An SDF official told Al-Monitor that as of Oct. 22, at least 500 Arab women had enlisted with the YPJ. Women fighters were the first to declare victory on Oct. 19 in Raqqa’s main square. “Many were Arabs,” the official said.
  • “So long as women are doing their jobs in the public sphere and there is full transparency, I don’t think even becoming fighters is that controversial in our society. Eastern Syria is not too religious.”
  • “The anomaly of female leadership appears to be more acceptable among the Kurds than in most other Middle Eastern societies.”
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  • Ocalan’s rambling treatises on gender equality known as “jineoloji” — a play on words based on “jin,” which means “woman” in Kurdish — resonate with women of different ethnicities and creeds. This self-professed “science of women” is drilled into men and women across Rojava, or “Western Kurdistan,” as the Kurdish-dominated swath of territory controlled by the YPG is known. 
  • Like many of her fellow Arab fighters she has picked up Kurmanji, the most common Kurdish dialect spoken in Rojava. “We are applying reverse assimilation here,” jokes her commander, a Syrian Kurd. She is referring to the central government’s decades-long drive to forcibly assimilate the Kurds by transplanting tens of thousands of Arabs into their midst, among other schemes.
  • “If women start using their positions to humiliate men, that could be a real problem in Arab society, far greater than any ethnic frictions that are likely to arise,” Hassan warned. “Our men are very sensitive, after all.”
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