After a long and tough battle, the Kurds expelled the military forcesof the Islamic State (IS) out of the city of Kobane, in Rojava (name with which they call the region of the Syrian Kurdistan).
Even if the IS still controls several towns and villages in the region, they are now retreating fast. We have supported that struggle right from the very beginning and that is why we celebrate this victory joyfully as the first defeat of the IS since their offensive aimed at building their “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. In their struggle, the Kobane fighters were supported by the peshmerga militias from the Iraqi Kurdistan (who contributed with the few heavy weapons for the battle) and by the battalions of the Syrian “rebels”.
However, the defence of Kobane has always been in inferiority of conditions as far as the military aspect is concerned. The IS has always had much heavier and more modern weaponry partly seized from the Iraqi army and partly purchased with the oil revenue in the areas controlled by them. Apart from that, they dedicated many of their best fighters to that battle, many of them with great experience and coming from abroad: the Kurdish headquarters reported that among the IS casualties they could identify men from 27 countries. But history has repeatedly proved that more often than not military superiority is no enough to guarantee triumph and that political factors, such as morals and conviction of the fighters may be as important as the “purely” military question or even more so. Let the example of the struggle of the State of Israel against the Palestinian people suffice as evidence. So what were the “political factors” that made room for this victory of the Kurdish people in Kobane? Let us have a look at the main ones.
The determination of the Kurdish people
The Kurdish people is one the most numerous nationalities in the world without a State of their own because in the XX century their nation was divided and the people were artificially shared out among other states (mainly Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria) where they are oppressed, discriminated and repressed.
The Kurdish people have always upheld their struggle for national liberation, for their right to self-determination and for the reunification of their former state. They were the protagonists of tough fights in the countries where they are oppressed and drowned in blood. In Syria, in 2012, before the IS attack they had starred in an armed appraisal against the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad within the framework of a civil war taking place in the country. Because of all their history, the Kurds are a long-suffering nation of great fighting spirit and the will of not bending to the first hardship.
The forces of the IS come from a sequence of easy triumphs in Iraq: many of the battalions of the army of that country fled without a fight and leaving a great amount of weapon on the battlefields. But in Kobane they found a fierce resistance of a population that fought for survival and for every house in the city by using the guerrilla warfare.
Under these circumstances, even the very IS (many of whose fighters also have ideological convictions) began to get demoralised. A foreign reporter in the region said that “The aura of invincibility the IS had enjoyed has been diluted and there are reports that tens of jihadists abandoned the Abu Bakr al Baghdali organisation.” [1]
Just to make the demoralisation of the IS troops even worse, they are not being defeated by smaller militias than theirs and worse off of arms but also consisting significantly of women and this is a severe blow for their reactionary ideology.
The role of Kurdish women
The world media and social networks showed many pictures and videos of young Kurdish women fighters that shook public opinion. These women had not only been at the forefront of the fight against IS, together with their fathers, brothers and partners, but quite often too they led battalions. This participation transformed them into great protagonists of this triumph.
What were the reasons for their protagonist role? There can be no doubt about their personal fate if the IS seized the city. In the best of the cases, death preceded by rape awaited for them. In the worst, they would be transformed into slaves and sexual merchandise, just as it happened in Iraq with the young women of the jazidist minority. The story of the commandant Arin Mirkan, who carried out a suicide attack in October in which numerous fighters of the IS were killed, was just a piece of evidence of the heroism these women were prepared to display as part of their struggle.
But this factor alone is not enough to explain everything. In all the great events of class struggle in the XX century, such as revolutions and wars, when the everyday cultural parameters are soon demolished, women play important and decisive roles. This is what happened in the Russian and Chinese Revolutions in the revolutions and civil wars in Mexico and Spain, in the resistance against Nazism during the II World War, etc. Roles that used to seem unobtainable were soon achieved.
It looks like in this case we have to add a third factor: the ideological vision that the PKK, of great weight in Rojava, and the Women’s Protection Units (YPG) leadership exert on the role of women. We have very deep disagreement regarding other conceptions and the general programme of the PKK, but at this point, this organisation plays a very progressive role that has been transmitted to other forces with which they interact in Rojava and the way in which this is expressed in the civilian and military organisation. In an interview, Omar Salih, representative of the so-called Tev-dem (Movement for a Democratic Society) explained, “Our revolution is the revolution of women. There is not a single spot in Rojava where women take no active part in life… we believe that a revolution that opens no paths for women’s liberation is not a revolution.”
Whatever the weight that each one of these factors combines with the others, the truth is that the struggle of Kurdish women in Rojava has turned into a bright light in the Middle East, where diverse reactionary forces wish to keep up with women stuck in their oppression and backwardness. It has also turned into a beautiful symbol of women struggle all over the world.
What was the importance of the imperialist bomb raids?
The Western media have tried to downplay the central importance of the Kurdish militias in the triumph and so overestimate the weight of the bombing carried out by imperialist planes on the military bases of the IS.
But reality belies this “misleading advertising”: the bombing did contribute towards the victory, but as a secondary factor. Firstly, the IS’ defeat took place just in Kobane/Rojava and there have not been similar events on other Iraqi territories. Secondly: out of the 1200 IS casualties estimated almost 1000 were killed in combats with the YPG militias (whose death toll was over 3000 between combatants and civilians).
Even the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, admitted that “victory would not have been possible” without the participation of the Kurdish Militias, while and American specialist on the Kurdish question in Turkey and Syria analysed, “However, none of these elements [bombings by imperialist forces, etc.] change the fact that the core achievement belongs to the YPG and YPJ fighters who have put up a very strong resistance on the ground that has impressed the entire world.” [2]
A “turning point”?
The Kurdish people of Kobane-Rojava has an immediate task to face: rebuilding the city (more than 50% of their infrastructure has been destroyed) to allow the return of 200,000 refugees who fled to Turkey. We share their effort. As we have seen on the media, it will be carried out with high spirits after the victory.
It is a victory that some of those who have given their support to this struggle analyse it as “a turning point” for the entire Arab and Muslim region. We have already argued with those who have considered that the processes that surfaced in Tunisia in 2011, especially in the case of Syria, were defeated. We said that there has been a reactionary and counterrevolutionary counteroffensive (the headway of IS is part of it) but that the revolutionary processes were very much alive and we were confident in the reversion of the situation.
We can’t tell whether the triumph of the Kurds in Kobane is the turning point of the process in the entire region. Only time will tell us. But of one thing we are sure: this is an important victory for “our side” and as such it will nourish the struggles underway. They are symbolized in the joint fight accomplished in Kobane by the militias of the YPG with the peshmergas and the Syrian rebel battalions.
This triumph is to serve, in the first place, as a springboard for the struggle for liberation of the Kurdish peoplein other countries (such as Turkey and Iran) and promote progress in building their own unified state.
Secondly, it should also be useful to promote the struggle against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, keeping up and deepening the alliance with the rebellious battalions. A first step in this direction would be to unite the struggle that is taking place in Aleppo (both against the forces of the regime in the city and against the IS in the countryside), creating in this way a “liberated corridor” in Northern Syria.
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[1] – http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2015/01/28/actualidad/1422454108_807889.html
