James
Appearances
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. It's me, James, today, and I'm joined by Dani. Dani's an engineer and photographer who lived in northeast Syria from 2018 until 2023 and a founding member of the RIC, which is the Rojava Information Center, if you're not familiar. And she worked for the Self-Administration and Civil Engineering while she was there. Welcome to the show, Dani.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah. Cheers. Thanks for coming. I know it's like a stressful time. So what I thought we would do is there's been a lot of reporting on Syria that people have probably seen if they're living in the US or the UK. Nearly all of it has either excluded or like footnoted what's happening in North and East Syria and specifically in the areas that are under the self-administration.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
So I was hoping today we could give people a little more introduction to what's happening there. There's been a lot of jubilation about what's happening in Syria, and things have been very far from universally positive. There's a massive displacement of civilians, ethnic cleansing of areas that have been captured by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
And genuine peril for the self-administration project, the like of which we haven't seen for a long time. So perhaps if listeners aren't familiar, would you give them the real basics of the self-administration of the AANES and what it means and what's going on there?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, I think that's a very good summary. I think, like, it gets missed... maybe because of how relatively successful it's been compared to other democratization projects within Syria, it gets missed that when people are talking about what will happen in Syria now, bizarrely, and I don't quite understand how we get here, but people seem to go to Libya. I understand how we get here.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
It's through a process of orientalism and ignorance. But we have a functioning democracy, an example of... It's not just Kurdish people, right? It's lots of communities living together in North and East Syria. And because of democratic confederalism, they're able to coexist and still feel they have enough sovereignty to be safe. Is that fair?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, it won't be any easier across the whole country than it was there. But like they have a system that works and it's kind of frustrating to see these discussions of what happens next that just ignore the fact that there's a functioning multi-ethnic democracy right there.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
If we do just look at women's liberation, you know, I've reported from lots of places around the world, lots of places in that part of the world. And the difference is profound in like everyday life. It's not just a kind of rhetorical commitment, right? Like, at least my impression as a man is that like, this is a revolution by women, not a revolution. It's about women. It's not...
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
A revolution by men that like seeks to liberate women says it's going to liberate women. You know, with the US invaded Afghanistan saying it was going to liberate women and look what we got. And like the difference in just the way people are able to like every aspect of everyday life is completely different. But that's in danger right now.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
The narrative, I guess, that people will be familiar with from Syria is that the state has been defeated. The Assad regime has been defeated. and that therefore the revolution has succeeded. But the Assad regime is not the only state in play in Syria, right? So can you explain the Turkish antipathy to the project in North and East Syria and how that's manifesting itself currently?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, I think we should probably mention that, I guess, if we talk about the electoral method or the electoral path, people in Turkish Kurdistan, in Northern Kurdistan, whatever you want to call it, in addition to the armed struggle, which has been there since 1984, they have also tried to vote and repeatedly seen their votes ignored or changed or their elected officials removed.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
This is within the last year. I'm not talking about back in the 80s and 90s. And like Turkey has been aggressively attacking any attempts at like self-determination within the country. And then, as you say, like militarily attacking the Kurdish freedom movement within North and East Syria.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Do you want to talk about the Syrian National Army or the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, whatever you want to call them, and explain like... I think part of what we're dealing with is that Turkey has a very well-established state media project, and they seem to do very well at creating viral social media content.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
So people might not be fully familiar with who the SNA are and specifically Turkey's role in creating them. Do you want to explain that a bit to people?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Right, and I think especially when some of the things the SNA have done, which we can maybe get into in Manbij, it gives them a deniability that wouldn't exist if that was regular soldiers doing that. Some stuff which is war crimes is, I guess, a nice way of saying it, like a more sanitized way of saying it, but horrific stuff, really terrible stuff.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
This has been happening since at least 2018, but Turkey doesn't have to be held accountable for that because, like you said, it's not the Turkish army. Do you want to explain how the situation in North Syria has changed since, when was it, like two weeks ago, a week ago?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
I guess that they moved south from Aleppo and the HTS largely with some support from SNA moved towards Damascus and then the SNA launched its own assault on the self-administration. Can you explain a little bit of what's happened there in terms of displacement and in terms of the terrain that the SNA have captured?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, and stuff's coming out unofficially often that is just not true every five minutes and getting blasted by maybe people who just don't understand or who do understand but have a certain agenda to push on social media, especially, but on Telegram too. And it can be really confusing and it's really frustrating.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, and you probably won't, and that's probably a good thing. One other thing is that, like, The SDF tends to have much better operational security discipline than the SNA does. So you won't see as much of media with an SDF spin or people directly streaming. I mean, one thing the SNA likes to do is a war crime and then post it on Telegram.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
And so it can be easy to only see that and be like, oh God, it's terrible. And it is terrible. Those things are horrific. But because you're not seeing when the SDF is making movements or making advances... until a bit later, until you get something from like an official press channel, it can give the impression that the SNA is just romping around, which is not the case.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, and I think it's a super important time to be looking at trusted sources and be considering if you need to be on Telegram that much, something I have been considering this weekend. So let's talk about like right now, certainly the focus is on Kobani, right?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But there's also, well, there's a lot of the self-administration that could potentially be under threat if Turkey decides to go as hard as it can against the self-administration, against the existence of Turkey. I guess, any form of democratic project in North and East Syria, attempts to kind of bring the whole thing under one government from Damascus.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Can you explain what might happen, what people can do? And we should talk about what's at stake as well, especially with the prison at Al-Hol, which maybe we can come to after those two things, because I think that's a lot to ask you in one question. But maybe if people aren't familiar with Al-Hol, we'll leave that one.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But can you explain at first what could potentially happen if Turkey decides to go as hard as it wants to here?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, and I think what you were talking about, we're seeing it right now in Manbij, right? The SNA seems to largely be in control of the city, albeit with YPG fighters kind of more, I guess, in a guerrilla role. So it would seem still fighting there.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But I believe we're on the second day of a general strike in Manbij, after less than a week of the SNA holding it because of looting and executions and other war crimes.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, and I think everyone I spoke to there, there's a deeply held conviction that they're not going back. Some people who have seen first-hand the fascist violence of ISIS, and fascist is the right word, it's something maybe worse than fascism.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Certainly speaking to women in Rojava about how they're not going back to the gendered violence that they experienced for decades, to include ISIS, but by no means only from ISIS. And
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
I guess that kind of brings us on to, I wanted to talk a little bit about the situation in the parts of Syria that are controlled by HCS and in so much as they really are controlled, controlled is perhaps the wrong word, like they haven't fully established their state project yet, but they're certainly moving towards that.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
They've sort of captured the institutions of the state rather than destroyed them. You'd spoken about like, there's this very, I guess maybe I'll use an example. Sorry, I'm phrasing this question in a very meandering way. I saw this CNN clip where they're like, oh, we found a guy who's in this prison and he was stuck here. And the second part of this was not broadcast on CNN.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
This person turns out to be like an Air Force lieutenant who was in fact himself someone who tortured and killed civilians. Yeah. And like, there's this very liberatory, very excited messaging coming from media in the West, I guess, some of which is good, right? Like it's good that the Assad regime is good. Assad was fucking terrible and tortured and killed hundreds of thousands of his own people.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But that doesn't mean that things are all perfect in Damascus. Do you want to talk a little bit about like some of the worrying stuff we've seen in the last few days from those areas?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, it's... I don't know. Every day we get different information, right? But like, yeah, I don't know if concerned is the right word either. I don't quite know what the word is. But like, I'm worried, I guess. I'm worried that... I'm especially worried when like... rather than what we saw in the self-administration was not like a continuation of institutions, right?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
When the Assad regime left in 2011 and 2012 and areas that the regime or ISIS have left since then, like it wasn't like, okay, we'll take over these institutions, administer them differently. It was, we will build democracy from the bottom up. No, we'll just change the people in charge versus what it seems like we're now seeing for Damascus.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
It's like, hey, can the police from the Assad regime please stay at work, which is concerning. Talking of police, the last thing I wanted to address was the Al-Hol camp.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
I've spoken about it before on this show and people can look back on other episodes, but if you've not heard about it, can you explain briefly what Al-Hol is and then the massive risk that this Turkish-backed invasion poses to Al-Hol and other camps? I guess Al-Hol's not the only camp, just the biggest one.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, it's shrunk, definitely. I'm not sure what it is exactly.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
No, those people probably have terrible experiences within that camp and they don't tend to be moderating and sort of pacifying experiences. And I'm sure that there'll be a lot of hate coming from there when those people come out. And I don't want to apportion blame too much, but we've had a long time to deal with this. The world's had a long time to deal with this.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah. And like, you've got Britain doing the opposite of what's helpful, which is fucking like removing people's passports, right? Like de-nationalizing them, leaving these people stateless and like saying it's not our problem, which is pathetic. And
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, and it's going to end up biting them in the ass because they've put this off and put this off and wouldn't spend the money to have justice, to go through a system and to have a chance to plead their cases, to have a tribunal, whatever it is. Instead, these people have just been essentially abandoned by most of the world.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
The self-administration has been forced to take care of the people who...
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
did horrific things right there and yeah at some point this population will continue to grow if we don't keep removing people from it and that's going to be a problem for the whole world even if the whole world wants to pretend it's not happening right now and it is just endlessly frustrating to see it not even be covered let alone kind of addressed in in the west
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah. And sadly, I don't see that changing given the incoming administration in the United States. It's deeply concerning. Deeply concerning is the wrong word. It's just fucked. I want to ask, people, I think, want to be in solidarity with the revolution. They want to help if they can. They want to support. I did a fundraiser last night. Thank you to everyone who gave their money and came.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
That was really nice. But What can people do to, you know, it's one thing to like be in solidarity or post or whatever, but like what concrete actions can they take to help?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, I think like, I don't know, if I go back to when I moved to the US, which was 2008, George W. Bush was president. And like I had my little free Palestine badge when I got off the plane and my little keffiyeh and like was immediately sent to secondary inspection by the customs people because like that was not really...
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Of course, there were Palestinian people and people in solidarity with the people of Palestine in the US then, and there were for a long time before. But, like, I would never have imagined that I would see thousands of people in the streets for the Palestinian cause.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
And, like, the only thing that has materially held back the genocide of the Palestinian people has been the solidarity that they've experienced. And, like... That shows the power that people have, though obviously it's been able to do comparatively little, and Israel still seems to be killing little children every day.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But it shows that we can build solidarity really quickly and really meaningfully. You don't have to go, but you can go. It's much harder to get to Palestine than it is to get to northern Syria. I went last year. And I think people who are already organizing can bring that into their organizing too. These things don't have to compete. There's a lot of solidarity to go around.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But I would say a lot of the news we see, unfortunately, from Turkey, and that will unfortunately give you information that's extremely biased when it comes to Northeast Syria. So being conscious of your media consumption is very important.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, I think that's really important too. And those are things maybe we'll cover in the future and there are plenty of good resources online. Are there any... resources you'd like to plug or like personal social medias, things you think people could follow to get good information on what's happening?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
Yeah, I think it's good to follow if you can. Thank you very much, Danny. What we're going to do now is I got some voice notes from some friends who are at the front with Atakosin Anasist, which means anarchist struggle in Kurdish. They're a group within the SDF that is an anarchist group that's there now.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
fighting, and in this case, actually doing frontline medical support on behalf of the self-administration, on behalf of the revolution. They sent me some notes this morning, it's Monday, today, from their positions on the frontline. So look, obviously, those notes will be a little bit, they'll be like 24 hours old by the time you hear them.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
But I still think it's very important to hear from people who are there when we can, not from like... someone who's supposedly an expert but hasn't set foot in Syria in 15 years and hasn't really talked to anyone who's Syrian either. So we'll drop those in after a little advertising break here. And with that, I will say thank you very much, Danny. Thanks for giving us your time.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 161
And we really appreciate all your insight today.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
I'm part of the Friends of Ray Common Committee, and what we did last year was we created this incredible event called the Rayfest. It was such a success that we are doing it again this summer, 6th July. We've got this massive playground here and the lovely field, and we're going to fill that with about 1,500 people. We've got a stage, a main stage. We have live bands. We've got live music.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
We get the school involved, which is a really big part of the Rayfest, is to get many of the children performing. We've got choirs. We've got dancers. We've got cheerleading. We've got, like I say, live music, bands. Local vendors from the area come down, selling loads of great food. We have pizzas last year. We've got curries. We've got Joe's Diner this year, which we're really excited about.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
Our makers market, so that's celebrating anybody who wants to sell anything, basically. Those kind of arts and crafts. Yeah, we've got, I think this year the Bats Hill Gin guys are coming down. Well, that's going to be a draw, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. And we've got jewellery makers, fashion, we've got all kinds of stuff going on there.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
Then we have our kind of like fun zone, which is where we raise loads of money. And the classic games of Splat the Rats and Huck the Duck, you know, all that stuff for the kids. And they love that. We've got inflatables. We've got chill out zone, which is going to be really exciting. We've got crafting going on over there. We've got tug of war. I can't. There's so much stuff going on.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
It's amazing. And you're going on and on and on, which is absolutely fantastic.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
You're really lucky as a school. Yeah, we're really lucky. The school's great. And not only just the people that come to the school, but the surrounding community is wonderful as well. So this is for everyone. It's not just for people that come to Raycommon, right? This is for everybody in the area. It's something for the community. that just happens to be on your land.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
Yeah, and I think that's what's really great. And obviously we're raising money for the school and it's part of the PTA. Our bonfire night's always been a big one. That's a success every year. And again, the local community gets involved. And we really wanted to make the summer event as big as that. So that's what we're trying to do and get as many people down as we can.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
What are you looking forward to as well for this particular event? The thing that I got really excited about last year was seeing some of the children perform on the stage I think it was like giving them an amazing place to sort of get involved I think making them a big part of it is really important for us and obviously and a big shout out to any parents we're looking for volunteers so
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
Thanks to all the parents that did it last year, but again, we need volunteers again this year to help out on all of the stalls, which is a really big part of this as well. A great team last year, so I really hope that we get the same people this year as well. So James, give us the details. When's it all happening? Saturday, July 6th. It starts at 12 o'clock. And goes until four in the afternoon.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
And the prices? Everyone's £4. Nice and easy.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
39: The Reigate Summer Festival, Wrayfest, and remembering a well-known Redhill and Reigate shopkeeper... and more
Well, tickets are on sale now. The best way to find us is to follow us on Instagram. And our Instagram is Raycommon. So if you search Raycommon on Instagram, you will find us there.