As Turkey invades Syrian territory to attack the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin, the Assad regime and its Russian sponsors are bombarding the rebel-held province of Idlib. Civilian populations in each are facing military attack. And the Rojava Kurds as well as the autonomous municipalities of Idlib are animated by an ethic of popular council-based democracy. But while Noam Chomsly and David Graeber issued a statement in support of Afrin, they—like most of the Western left—are silent about the aggression against Idlib. The destructive meddling of the Great Powers could unleash an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in Syria—a potentially disastrous sequel to the war against ISIS. It is urgent to rebuild Arab-Kurdish solidarity against the Assad regime, the jihadists and the intervening imperialist powers—and for a democratic and secular future for Syria. Bill Weinberg explores this question on Episode Two of the CounterVortex podcast. You can listen on SoundCloud.
Music: Moh Alileche, “It Started in Tunisia”
Production by Chris & William Rywalt
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Photo: Kurdish militia figher at Afrin, via ANF
Erratum
Forgive my errors, hard to think on my feet all the time. I know the SDF are the Syrian Democratic Forces, not the Syrian Defense Forces. It is not Afrin town itself that has repeatedly changed hands (it has been controlled by Kurdish forces since 2012) but outlying areas of Afrin "canton," and the "corridor" between Afrin and the rest of Rojava. It is here that the "ethnic cleansing" of Arabs is supposed to have atken place.
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