Rojava: Revolution, War and the Future of Syria's Kurds

by Thomas Schmidinger

The Kurdish territory of Rojava in Syria has in recent years become a watchword for radical democracy, communalism, and gender equality. This book, however, argues that much of how we see Rojava from the outside is a projection of the values of Western radicals whose understanding of the complexities of the situation are limited. Thomas Schmidinger has been working in Rojava for seventeen years, and here he gives us the clearest picture yet of the history, politics, and society of the region today. He sketches the historical background of the Kurds in Syria, then details the developments since the outbreak of war in 2011, including the establishment of the Kurdish para-state and ongoing conflicts between Kurdish parties about how it should be administered. Drawing on interviews with leaders from different parties, civil society activists, artists, fighters, and religious leaders, Schmidinger delivers an authentic, nuanced, unromanticized portrait of Rojava today.
 

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East, War

368 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2014

Reviews

[Bernard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for anyone interested in understanding the situation in Northern Syria as well as gaining a critical and historically comprehensive insight into the foundations of Syrian Kurdistan/Rojava. It both demystifies and praises the Kurdish project in a way that dispels the overly heroic and fetishistic depiction one might encounter in online leftist circles, whilst also allowing the reader to understand the underlying pragmatism and difficulty of the situation. An incredibly useful resource.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A super thorough explanation of the party system in Rojava and a history of what has happened up until 2018. A little confusing at times, but I mostly attribute that to the disunity amongst Kurdish political parties rather than the actual book.

[Tiarnán · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this academic book on the 'Rojava' project in north/north-eastern Syria, based in the Kurdish-majority areas of the country which - backed militarily by armed militia (YPG) allied to the Turkish-Kurdish paramilitary organisation the PKK - have increasingly claimed autonomy from the central government over the period in which the Syrian crisis and Civil War has unfolded since 2011 onwards.

Schmidinger does a good job in problematising the somewhat simplistic view that most sympathetic Westerners have of Rojava, pointing instead to its linguistic, religious, ethnic, and political diversity. He also offers an insightful historical overview of the emergence of the 'Kurdish question' in independent Syria, tracing its legacy to the colonial period, the upheavals of the post-WWI and Sykes-Picot / Young Turks era, and the institution of one-party Arab Nationalist/Baathist rule in the 20th century.

At the same time he remains broadly sympathetic to the plight both of the Syrian Kurds in general, and to some extent to the political project of the PKK-linked YPG/PYD specifically. To some extent this emerges as a central flaw in the book - particularly as one now witnesses the collapse of the YPG/SDF project in Rojava as the regime, Turkey, Russia, and the US assert their own selfish geopolitical interests. The overall YPG orientation of semi-collaboration with the regime and standoffishness towards the Opposition (however justified by anti-Kurdish sentiments or Arab chauvinist attitudes within it) meant that their project remained at the geopolitical mercy of various imperial interests in northern Syria - firstly in the regime's goal to push back and penalise the civilian and 'moderate' armed resistance to its rule, and secondly by Russia and the US' short term desire to eliminate IS as part of a broader propaganda/military campaign. Those issues settled, the regime, in collaboration with the anti-Kurdish, anti-PKK, Turkish chauvinist regime of Erdogan, has now turned its sights on Rojava and has begun dismantling the tentative project of Kurdish self-rule in the region.

The future doesn't appear pretty for the project or region, and this book does an excellent job of explaining many the internal and geopolitical reasons for why that is so, even if it doesn't offer a fully critical political examination of the YPG's disastrous strategy in the Civil War.

[ılgın]

1 kasımda bitirsem çok güzel olurdu,,, #defendrojava

[Kevin Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think a star rating system doesn’t really work for a book like this, giving it four stars just to note that it is worth reading.

Very informative book, I’ve been personally fixated on Rojava since 2016, and given recent events I thought I’d check back in so to speak. What I really appreciated about this book was the series of interviews that take up the latter half of the book. It’s nice to hear directly from people participating what they think, as opposed to the idealized or demonized portrayals we get from second or third hand sources. Well worth a read if you’re interested or concerned about the region

[Wilbur Townsend]

Quite dense. Essentially a political history, so not much detail on Rojava's governance at an institutional level. The last third is just interviews without any commentary -- this was surprisingly effective.