Ecological Revolution in Rojava: Activism, Sustainability, and Global Solidarity with Berivan Omar & Anya Rebrii
The following interview was recorded for the Poor Proles Almanac podcast with guests Berivan Omar & Anya Rebrii from Defend Rojava. Berivan Omar is a Kurdish feminist activist and social ecologist who lives in northeast Syria. Anya Rebrii is an activist and author who is involved with the Emergency Committee for Rojava. Together, they'll be authoring a chapter in a book next year with AK Press, titled “Rojava in Focus Critical Dialogues”, and this book will highlight the successes and struggles the region has faced since its autonomy (pre-order available here).
We're jumping into the messy reality of building a new vision of how societies should be organized and the role ecology has played in that process. While the region's dedication to feminism and anti-capitalism has made Rojava the model that, in the eyes of anarchists around the globe, highlights the potential for revolutionary futures, the role of ecology tends to be lost. We talk about why this is the case, what's being done, and what the future looks like for ecology in the region and Rojava as a whole. To learn more about their work, check out @DefendRojava on Instagram.
Andy:
Anya, Berivan, I’m so pleased to have you join us today. Please introduce yourself and tell us what's going on with this ecological issue.
Berivan Omar:
Good evening. I'm Berivan Omar from Rojava. I teach ecology at Rojava University and work in local administration. First of all, thank you for having me on this program.
Many people talk about Rojava from the perspective of war and fighting with ISIS and gender equality, or, as we call it, the women's revolution. These are extremely important matters, as they have transformed the region a lot. It has truly been a revolution, especially regarding the role of women in society. But, as your listeners probably already know, we rely on three main principles in our work: democracy, ecology, and women's freedom.
Since the beginning of the revolution, the autonomous administration of North East Syria has had to focus on so many issues, and ecology hasn't received much attention. This is because we have faced many challenges, especially those related to war, fighting against ISIS, and ongoing attacks from the Turkish state. All of these factors have contributed to the lack of progress in this field in North Syria.
There is also another reason there are not many advances in this field in Syria at all. There haven't been any effective awareness programs, which has left us somewhat unfamiliar with this concept. At the beginning of the revolution. As I mentioned, the concept was new to many, and there was a need for several years to work on spreading environmental awareness, especially in the field of environmental care. The core concept used was social ecology, which is how to manage society in ecologically sustainable ways.
Anya Rebrii:
I would like to elaborate and provide some context for those who may not be familiar with Rojava. My name is Anya Ribrii, and I'm with the Emergency Committee for Rojava. We've done solidarity work with the people and movement in northeast Syria. Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish freedom movement, developed the philosophy of democratic confederalism. The movement first emerged in Turkey and has now spread to Syria.
In this philosophy, Ocalan is trying to tackle all different types of oppression all at once, and that's what makes it so fascinating what's happening in Northeast Syria right now in his writings while he was in prison, he's still in prison in Turkey, but in his writings, you know, he tried to address the intersections between the oppressive structures of the state of various types of hierarchy patriarchy, capitalism, states of various types of hierarchy, patriarchy, capitalism, ethno-racial oppression and also exploitation of nature.
And he outlined the path toward liberation that addresses all these different structures of oppression. So his writings and his philosophy advocate for replacing the state with a confederation of communes, a decentralized, directly democratic confederation of village or neighborhood-based assemblies where people come together and decide on their collective issues together, and he rejects the nation-state as a model of social organizing. So he advocates for autonomy and equal access to power for different ethnoreligious groups, which is super important for the Middle East in particular, right given the history of ethnoreligious conflicts there and the use of religion and ethnicity by imperialist powers and the nation-states to maintain power, as you mentioned.
The philosophy also advocates democratizing the economy through cooperatives and restructuring the economy and humans' relationship to nature more broadly in a way that is sustainable and not harmful to our non-human counterparts. So, you can see that it's a very ambitious program, and clearly, 12 years have not been enough to achieve everything that the movement has in mind.
And the last thing perhaps to mention, and Berivan brought it up that, in terms of ecology in particular, Abdullah Ocalan was influenced by the American thinker, historian, and philosopher Murray Bookchin, who developed the framework of social ecology and who argues that ecological problems are inherently social problems, so they cannot be addressed through technological intervention. They have to be addressed by reorganizing society as a whole and by eradicating hierarchy and domination across different spheres of society. And so, again, it's a very ambitious project.
Andy:
Absolutely, and I think most people listening are excited to see how it develops, but to your point, there's still a lot to do, especially on the ecological front. One of them, one in particular I know that's been of concern, is the dependence on oil. That seems like a really big, I don't want to say issue, but concern, given this framework of how society is supposed to be organized that yet, despite all these great ideas, oil is still a foundational part of the economy in Rojava? So, could you explain or talk maybe a little about why there hasn't been much success moving away from oil?
Berivan Omar:
Yes, regarding the issues of oil, it's indeed a problem. The entire region was built on the basis of exploiting the oil resources within it. When the autonomous administration was founded, they had no financial resources, and they also faced, and still face, a blockade from neighboring countries. Their only option was to utilize what was available and to gradually transition towards alternative energy sources has been somewhat slow. There has been a noticeable improvement in the past two years, encouraging the use of solar energy.
However, many obstacles exist, especially related to the lack of previous experience in this field and the lack of necessary technologies to implement a transition on a greater scale. In most cases, solar energy generated by solar panels is sufficient for a single household, and it has not been widely implemented to this day, remaining an individual experiment.
Anya Rebrii:
Yeah, again, just to emphasize, when it comes to oil, as Barry Van explained. Yeah, again, just to emphasize, when it comes to oil, as Barry Van explained, the reason why the Thomas administration hasn't transitioned to alternative energy sources is not the lack of the will; it's really the circumstances under which this revolution is taking place.
Planning to have a revolution or any major social transformation in Syria in 2012 would have been way down on the bottom of your list of choices. You know, it was an impossible place to have a revolution, but because of the opening that was provided by the Syrian civil war, the movement has had to step in and has had to, you know, try their best to implement this radical program in practice, and I want to elaborate a little bit more on the factors, on the obstacles that Berivan brought up.
One little-known fact is that the autonomous administration has been under a de facto economic embargo, on one hand, by the Syrian government and, on the other, by Turkey and Turkey's proxy, the Kurdistan region of Iraq. So, it's really difficult to bring things inside the region, especially when it comes to developing the solar energy sector.
Ideally, the autonomous administration has to build a solar panel factory, but they cannot do it under the current circumstances because the strategically important industrial and technical imports are practically impossible to bring in because, as I mentioned, Turkey's proxy, the Kurdistan region of Iraq, controls the only functional border crossing between northeast Syria and the outside world. So that's one major issue. The solar panels that do get across into the region tend to be overpriced because of the black market around the border, around the border, or they tend to be of low quality because the autonomous administration doesn't control, doesn't have control over which companies they want to work with.
And then another issue is, again, as Berivan mentioned, the lack of resources. Unfortunately, oil constitutes the major source of income for the administration at the moment, and they have not been able to develop other sectors of the economy because of the war. It's been a war zone for a decade now. There have been two major invasions and occupations in the last few years. Turkey still attacks the region on a daily basis.
And again, another little-known fact: unfortunately, these attacks happen under the radar of the mainstream media, but even progressive media doesn't pay much attention. For example, in October last year, Turkey started systematically targeting infrastructure, civilian infrastructure in northeast Syria to basically undermine the region, to make the region uninhabitable, hitting deliberately, targeting places like power and water infrastructure, so far leaving up to 2 million people with little access to water and power, but also the cost of damages estimated to exceed $1 billion.
I mean, it's crazy to think how the autonomous administration can, you know, even start repairing all this infrastructure that has been targeted. You know, it will be kind of suicidal for the region to declare that they're gonna stop relying on oil at this moment, under these conditions, until the time when you know they can actually develop other sectors of the economy.
Andy:
Yeah, I think that's absolutely fair. And there are obvious repercussions to everything happening, from pollution, from facilities being destroyed and all the other challenges that go with keeping people alive while also fighting a war, challenges that go with keeping people alive while also fighting a war, while also trying to transform everything fundamentally in a society. There's no less important piece. Right, they're all equally important.
And to Ocalan's point that you can't fix any of this without addressing the ecological component, yet it really hasn't gotten as much of a central focus, both in terms of actual practice as well as in terms of interest from outside organizations, whether it's podcasts or reporters. We keep talking about it being this socialist ecological vision. A lot of attention has been paid to the socialist side and the feminist side, but not much on the ecological side. I'm curious how come you don't think the ecology has gotten as much of that central focus, even though they're always described as these three tenets of the revolution.
Berivan Omar:
If we are talking about the lack of attention among the local population, I might disagree because when we talk about the environment, it does receive attention. However, we don't just focus on the environment. We focus on the concept of social ecology, which is different a little bit. This means that we believe that to solve environmental problems and all the problems that humanity faces, we need to fundamentally organize society. This is achieved through the application of principles of decentralization and direct democracy.
In Rojava, we have taken some effective steps in this regard. I say this because I lived a part of my life under the previous regime, and I still follow what is happening in Syria and other countries, so I can see the difference. One good example of how we have tried to implement social ecology in practice is the commune system ecology in practice. In the commune system, Communes exist in each village and neighborhood and play a significant role in decision-making progress. They represent the smallest cell in the community organization and the new political system set up in Northeast Syria. They also form a council for making general decisions.
Here, I want to discuss my experience working with the local administration. Many examples prove that communes make decisions related to their way of life in their specific geographical areas. In addition, municipal work has changed significantly in recent years. All projects planned for any city or village now involve meetings with the residents. The basic needs proposed by the residents are considered, and no project is officially approved without their vote.
This approach has been instrumental in solving many environmental problems. For example, in the city of Qamishli, there used to be a waste dump that caused problems for the locals. Also, it was not a priority for the municipality administration initially. The residents agreed and voted for a project to address these issues, and it was successfully implemented.
Anya Rebrii:
Yeah, so Berivan sort of talked about the lack of attention, or the perceived lack of attention or relative lack of attention internally by the movement, and indeed, you can argue that there is that, but at the same time, they have been doing a lot on this front despite all odds. But you're also asked about the lack of attention internationally and why these issues haven't been highlighted that much. And it's true they have not. And strangely, because really northeast Syria is at the intersection of such major issues.
You have global climate change affecting the region in so many ways. You have Turkey's water wars that also contribute to the desertification of the region, and yet the issue has definitely remained sort of marginal, especially in leftist spaces. And you know my personal opinion, and I've been to the region twice, and I've met people working on the ecological front there. And I think the language barrier perhaps is one issue for sure. We don't have that many people who speak enough English on the ground and can build relationships with the outside world or participate in podcasts like everyone is doing right now.
In the United States, I can speak about the Emergency Committee for Rojava, and we have been trying to build bridges between activists and groups in the United States and activist movement members in Rojava. We have had exchanges between cooperatives co-ops in the United States and co-ops in Rojava, between trade unions here and trade unions there, and we would love to do something also on the ecological front with people like Berivan, who works with the local administration directly.
Green Trees is an organization that has been at the forefront of ecology-related work. It actively seeks support and all kinds of exchanges with the outside world. Berivan mentioned that different solidarity relationships could be built around such basic things as the exchange of knowledge because, as Berivan mentioned, there is a real lack of expertise on this front. This issue was not given enough attention before the region became autonomous under the Syrian government.
Andy:
How do you address this issue of ecological restoration without the knowledge and infrastructure to do it? It's not as simple as just saying we're going to plant 10 million trees that are native. Where are they coming from? How are you identifying them? How do you understand how regions should look and how climate change and the destruction over the last hundred years have played into that?
So, I'd definitely like to dive a little deeper into this conversation of ecology and agroecology. So first, there are a lot of inspiring projects that I've seen in Rojava over the past decade, the Slow Food Gardens in Kobani, which worked with kids to inspire them to value ecology, as well as the women's only agricultural cooperatives, and I feel like I heard a lot about these movements or these projects like five, seven years ago, and looking for updates on any of this seems to be sparse. To your point of information, there's probably things going on, it's just not getting out to the rest of the world, and that's, I guess, what I'm trying to do. So, I guess, are these projects continuing to develop and expand, and are there new projects similar to these or even more agroecologically focused?
Berivan Omar:
I will try to talk about something that I was a part of because I worked on it. I have experience in it. So, indeed, there have been several inspiring initiatives in our region since the beginning of the revolution. One important example that I would like to mention is the Zero Waste project that was started in the city of Hazaka a couple of years ago. It was unmanageable to talk about waste sorting and recycling in the past. While it might be considered ordinary for people in the West, for us, it was exceptional.
Throughout our lives, we used to dispose of mixed waste in the streets, which would then be collected and dumped in a landfill, causing environmental pollution and health issues. Today, we see some projects that are the first steps toward establishing a proper waste management system. As a part of the Zero Waste project, several communes sort their waste at home and then take it to recycling facilities. Additionally, they utilize organic waste to produce compost for agricultural purposes. There has also been a noticeable shift towards tree planting and home vegetable gardening among many residents in the field of agriculture. In this regard, it's important to emphasize that the Syrian government exploited our region for resource extraction, using most of the land for monocultures like wheat. Planting trees was even criminalized under the Assad regime, so reforestation is an important step to decolonize our region.
Our region also experienced deforestation due to the war. ISIS cut down some trees, and people used trees for fuel and cooking when fuel sources were scarce. To fix this problem, we focused on training people to plant trees. From 2015 to 2023, we planted about 40,000 trees. We have also worked with schools to get students involved. I think this is a great way to change people's thinking and make them care more about the environment.
Also, in the school, there are environment committees made up of teachers, and cleaning staff have been replaced by collaboration between teachers and students, who now collectively clean the schools. Furthermore, our universities have introduced environmental science courses in most departments, with a special focus on social ecology. This could not have been implemented 10 years ago.
Anya Rebrii:
Yeah, maybe just more examples of practices that aim to restore traditional knowledge and traditional techniques. I'm sure people have heard about the women-only eco-village called Jinwar, which was designed and set up by the women's movement in northeast Syria as a sort of safe space for women who have had traumatic experiences with patriarchy, be it ISIS or even just domestic abuse. But what they also are trying to do is to, you know, sort of recover traditional ways of being in various aspects of life.
For example, they have built their own homes using local clay, following the traditional practice of building clay houses and applying traditional shapes to increase the thermal efficiency of these buildings. They also engage in organic farming, trying to reduce the use of chemicals and practicing crop rotation on the same land where the Syrian government practiced monoculture not so long ago.
They collect rainwater and groundwater for irrigation. We try to integrate cattle raising into agricultural production, also thinking about how to introduce techniques like agroecology. So, you know, definitely, kind of a lot of activity in this regard happening there to use more herbal, more traditional plant-based remedies instead of relying on Western allopathic medicine exclusively, and they try to cultivate their own plants, especially those that are local to the region.
Of course, you also mentioned the challenge of obtaining the seeds of local plants. For example, Berivan mentioned the tree-planting campaign, which was the first obstacle they faced. They didn't have the seeds, and that was partially due to the colonial relationship the Syrian government established with this region and also due to the Assad regime's centralization of agriculture before the revolution to control this sector.
They controlled the production and distribution of seeds, so when the war broke out, and the region became de facto autonomous, they were not able to access their own seeds because they were stored in the Syrian government's seed banks. It's ironic that the seeds the region had been a breadbasket for decades were not accessible to the entire country once they cut their relationship with the Syrian government.
These are the local varieties, and so the autonomous administration still has to deal with this issue. Of course, they're trying to recover and develop local varieties. But again, they like expertise. It was never done locally. They like equipment, you know. They like labs. They like genetic materials, so that's definitely a struggle.
Andy:
Yeah, absolutely, I can only imagine.
So I'd also like to talk about contextualizing some of what's been going on in Rojava with what's also another very big movement in the area, the Mesopotamian ecology movement, and with some very similar politics and understanding of ecology, as what is the foundation of Rojava?
For folks that are unfamiliar with the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement, they're a decentralized movement centered around agroecological principles that sprung up in response to damming and other ecological destruction and kind of has multiple facets of how it's organized in Turkey. One of the things they focus on is the restoration of traditional practices, which, they argue, can handle the current droughts and water shortages that are being experienced now.
While they're not in Rojava. I think they point to a lot of the same challenges that you guys are facing, and it has me wondering if there have been any initiatives to restore traditional practices that can handle those current droughts that you're experiencing and the water shortages artificial or natural that are being experienced in the region. Or is there any work being done to restore traditional crops or traditional varieties, and in that process, what kind of feedback are you getting from citizens about this idea of going back after being acclimated to these conventional crops that were really bred to be able to be sold on a bigger market.
Berivan Omar:
Yeah, in this regard, I will talk about my personal experience in something called artificial forests. We work on this project to plant the trees native to the area. So far, we have had three projects of this kind. We go to some people who still have some trees. They take care of it, so we take part of the trees, and then we take care of it, and then we plant it in some areas. Now we have three projects for this.
In addition to that, farmers are encouraged to diversify their crops. Now, there are many crops here, and the focus is so many is on many varieties that have been absent from the region for a long time because of the monoculture approach of the Syrian government In this field of vegetable cultivation. It's, in general, done in most villages, and they rely on their own crops. They have reduced production costs and the use of preservatives and pesticides. As for the cities, work is still being done to implement vegetable gardens, which are part of our future project.
Anya Rebrii:
Yeah, maybe just to the question of water shortages. Again, for the context, right, it's not. You know, the region has experienced historic droughts in the last decade and it's not just because of the climate global climate change, it's definitely that definitely is at play but also due to Turkey's use of water as a weapon of war and what Turkey has been doing. And that's where you see the connection between the work that the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement has been doing in the north of northeast Syria, in Kurdistan, part of Kurdistan that's been colonized by Turkey.
So Turkey has been using its dams to decrease the downstream flow of the Euphrates River into Syria, intentionally, again, to deprive the region of water. As I mentioned before, that's sort of a multifaceted, long-term strategy to undermine the autonomous administration, and depriving people of water is one tactic that Turkey has been using. And those are the same dams that the Mesopotamian Ecology Movement has been fighting up north within Turkey, within the borders of Turkey, for a variety of reasons, right within the borders of Turkey. A variety of reasons, right, but the effect, the impact in northeast Syria has been quite dramatic, you know.
I visited some villages that had disappeared. They're just ghost villages now. People had to leave because their rivers dried up. You know, because of this policy in Turkey, agricultural lands are drying up. The region's Tunmas administration's hydroelectric sector has seen a decrease in its capacity to generate electricity. So, the impact has been quite drastic, and, unfortunately, I'm afraid that addressing this issue would require international diplomatic and political pressure on Turkey just because of the scale of the problem that they're able to cause by weaponizing water.
Andy:
We had talked about, or I had asked about, traditional crops and varieties. Are people interested in them, or do they like the way things are regarding their food choices?
Berivan Omar:
Yeah, it's something difficult. Not all of them are interested in it. But now, after years, many years of putting a lot of effort into this, like training and making many seminars showing them the importance of this thing, it's good. It's become better year by year, it's become better. But I want to mention something here. Many years ago, I can say that when we were living under the Syrian regime, there were no initiatives for taking care of the environment.
But now, here in the autonomous administration time, there are a lot of initiatives, more than 20 initiatives that are taking care of the environment, want to make changes to plant trees and have awareness programs. So it's really important. They're making a change. Maybe it's a little bit slow, but we are. We have hope that it will be better in the future for people who are listening.
Andy:
What can they do to support what you guys are doing? I mean, I know they can't send seeds in or anything like that, but what kind of things can they do to support what you guys are doing?
Berivan Omar:
I want to talk about some difficulties. Really we experienced a lot of obstacles from the beginning of the revolution until now, from ISIS to climate change to drought, but I want to emphasize that the biggest threat to the revolution at the present time is the attack of the Turkish state. They targeted the people who worked for the success of the revolution, civilians, and infrastructure.
A few minutes ago, they targeted a car here in Pamukhla in the city, and there were people who were working in the hospital. They were doctors. They were working in the hospital to help people, but now I heard that they targeted the car.
The task was a great loss for our colleagues. The goal was to secure a better life for the people of this region. The instability and lack of security also opened the door to immigration, especially by the youth, who we need at this time. What encourages us to continue to work under these difficult conditions? The presence of friends like you, who have been supportive of us on our path to carry on this unique and inspiring experience.
Anya Rebrii:
Yeah, I would say there are a lot of ways in which people could support the ecological struggle in particular, and I already mentioned that it could be done on a very basic level, just by exchanging information and experience, and I would definitely encourage people, whoever is listening, to reach out.
You can contact the Emergency Committee for Rojava, the organization I work with. We can also put you in direct touch with Berivan and Green Tress, which I also mentioned. Both organizations do this type of work and have been looking for allies outside Rojava. I assume most of your listeners are US-based, and we always emphasize in our solidarity work that we, as constituents, are, unfortunately, constituents of our government.
I know it's not really representative of any of our wishes as Americans, but because the United States has been complicit in Turkey's war on the Kurds and on North East Syria, we believe that we have some additional responsibility to express support and solidarity with northeast Syria and, again, we would love to help to build bridges between groups that have similar values or do similar work as that which is being done by Berivan and her colleagues in northeast Syria, and I would definitely welcome people to reach out and to brainstorm how we can support.
Andy:
Finding new ways to keep the pressure on what's happening is important and to the point. There was this boom of information about Rojava five, six, seven years ago, but it's lost its immediacy, I think, for a lot of Americans and that, okay, this thing is going, it's been going, it's going, and that's about it, and there does need to be more attention paid to what's happening and what we can do.
Being aware of the challenges that are still being faced, there are new challenges in many cases, doing what we can to support folks over there challenges in many cases, and doing what we can to support folks over there. So, Anya and Berivan, this has been really interesting, fascinating, and inspiring, and I'm confident that things will continue to progress there; of course, our platform is always open to you guys.
Anya Rebrii:
Thank you so much for hosting us.
To listen to this episode, tune in to episode #205 of the Poor Prole’s Almanac.