Serkeftin: A Narrative of the Rojava Revolution

by Marcel Cartier

In the Spring of 2017, activist, journalist and hip-hop artist Marcel Cartier was given exclusive access to the structures set up in the predominately Kurdish areas in northern Syria. Over the course of more than a month, Cartier travelled across the terrain known as Rojava, experiencing the radical grassroots revolution that is sweeping the region. He spoke with commanders of the People's Protection Units (YPG), visited women's organisations, saw the cooperatives and communes in action that have transformed the concept of democracy, and found his understanding of revolution challenged and reinvigorated. Unique in its access, emotion and humanity, A Narrative of the Rojava Revolution, is a beautiful account of a contradictory and complex process that is fundamentally changing society in the midst of the 21st century's most brutal civil war. Meaning ‘victory', the Kurdish word ‘serkeftin' captures the spirit of optimism in the catastrophe that has engulfed this beautiful country since 2011 and has simultaneously brought the possibility of freedom ever closer.

Genres: Nonfiction

156 pages, Paperback

Published February 22, 2019

Reviews

[Mariam Rawwas]

This might sound odd, but I think the biggest red flag that clued me in on the ideological pitfalls of this text was referring to ISIL/Daesh as "fascist." First and foremost because fascism is a specific, historically-bounded political phenomenon with an attendant set of ideological presuppositions that can in no way be reductively collapsed into Islamic theocratic movements, but also because it belies a rather simplistic worldview in which there are good and bad actors, and in which an organization such as ISIL can be quickly dismissed by labeling them as such. Which is not to say that ISIL is good, of course, but rather to note that things are much more complicated than this binary will allow. Otherwise, this is a personal account of someone who seems way too caught up in ideological thinking, trying to reignite a belief in the possibility of revolution in the face of the collapse of that category as in any way useful, at least in the Western context. Despite some feminist overtures at the level of discourse, the text is also permeated by an undercurrent of misogyny, "women's issues" being trotted out in service of attempting to proselytize on behalf of the YPG but seemingly not mentioned for their own sake. The writing is simply too heavy-handed and propagandistic, and stuck in the binary oppositions that reductive materialists often find themselves caught in.

[Gin]

Neither comprehensive nor is there a lot of info, to be honest. But it looks to be a passion project for Cartier, in the way that he wrote about his month long experience in Rojava. I think that it is less about the subject he is writing about and more about his views and feelings. It’s not a criticism per se, but I felt that he was using Rojava to find himself, so to speak.

Calling himself a revolutionary Marxist and Marxist-Leninist, along with occasional praises about the likes of North Korea and the Soviet Union, he had to face up to the fact that life is not all black and white. Here he is amidst an organisation that is ideologically oriented towards anarchism and libertarian socialism, and he documents himself facing and eventually (I hope?) coming to terms and questioning some of the ML dogma he came with. In fact I think that for any Western Leftist, that would be the biggest takeaway, especially in light of the current war in Ukraine, and the tendency for western leftists to “Westplain” to the rest of us leftists from around the world what we should feel about the likes of China and their imperialist ambitions.

[Lucien]

I loved this book. It is not exhaustive, it is not well documented, but well, there are plenty of others books that play that role very well. However, Marcel's book is the tale of a journey into another society, a society more just, more equal, the kind of society that every living beings should have the chance of living into. What Marcel's account adds to the more theoretical, academic or historical books on the subject, is a view from inside, and the thoughts and reflections of another westerners that discover this place that proves that human beings are not inherently flawed and that another world is indeed possible.

[Aaron Schuschu]

Not always a fan of shade being thrown at the US military (though a lot of it is well- deserved and I have my own military family baggage), but we can learn a lot from this, progressive people everywhere.