SF: Solidarity with the Kurdish Revolution

A demonstration nearing 75 people in the heart of San Francisco’s tourist epicenter – Union Square – was held Sunday, July 26th. Beautiful hand painted banners complemented speakers who read statements and messages of solidarity while others distributed around 1,000 leaflets. A march circled the square which boasted not just a contempt for ISIS and Erdoğan but of an expression for freedom born from only the most insufferable conditions.

Kurdistan is in armed conflict with the state, the self-declared caliphate of ISIS and the western capitalist forces of the world (NATO). It is a position landed upon after hard years of longing for an independence denied at every turn. The struggle exists in a complex web of political parties, geo-political positioning, historical revision, across several languages. Within and against the politics, the patriarchal drive for domination, authority, and rule the Rojava revolution of western Kurdistan has shown great commitment to autonomy, liberation and has set an example for a multi-ethnic, secular middle east.

Last week ISIS cowardly detonated a suicide bomb on a group of young revolutionaries delivering aid to Kobanê in the town of Suruç. This attack murdered thirty-two and injured over 100 more. The situation has led to many solidarity demonstrations across the world and an armed revolt in Turkey. Today was an opportunity to gravitate toward each other, to converse and correspond.

The solidarity demonstration in San Francisco today was in part a way to recognize ourselves in this complex web of events in order to conspire a way of escape and a response to the Anarchy Initiative call for worldwide solidarity demonstrations against the Turkish State. A demonstration is personal, it is both a reflective time and a social engagement. For Anarchists the lense we view the world has always been one which highlights both our own struggles and recognizes the intersections we have with others. The disasters of this world are ever present as is the challenge to recognize and be present for them.

The posh shops surrounding Union Square have been a target of liberationist forces here, last winter the spectacle was cracked by waves of demonstrators who acted upon the glossy façades. This impetus propelled a movement, but it could not carry it through the crashing waves of the returning normality. Normality is the war that is waged by the powerful upon our fragile and precarious lives and today the docile tourist carries on, dollar in hand.

Remembering our own battles against state and capital and casting a small act of solidarity with our comrade fighters in to the social media streams has produced many questions amongst comrades. Normality may have seeped back in to the streets of the bay but we hope that this message touches at least one person so acutely that they are compelled to act. To take to action in times of war is to meet the consequences of self-determination. Basically, you need it!

As those who recognize themselves as revolutionaries acting against the war at home and abroad it may be difficult to reflect but we must, and demonstrations are one way we know how. In this some Anarchists in the bay chose to act in solidarity with the liberatory aims of Kurdistan, Rojava and YPG/YPJ fighters. As YPG/YPJ fighters are closing in on ISIS’s capital of Al-Raqqah The Nation State of Turkey is taking aim on Kurdistan. Turkish tanks have begun shelling the libreationist YPG forces in Syria and PKK forces in Iraq. There is a civil war going on in Turkey. There is a civil war going on in the states.

Dedicated to the fallen comrades of Suruç. May the roses we rest upon our banners give strength to our combatants.
The revolution must be defended.
-Some Anarchists