ROJAVA «Power to the people: a Syrian experiment in democracy
Carne Ross»: «The onset of the Syrian revolution in 2012 saw the collapse of the
Assad regime’s authority across much of Syria. When this vacuum opened
in Rojava, the Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD) sought to fill it by
building a new form of democracy from the bottom up.
In this radical new dispensation, authority is vested primarily in
the communal level — the village. At one assembly I attended, villagers
gathered in a spartan town hall to debate their affairs. An old man
began by retailing all the decisions of the previous meeting. The
audience grew restive with boredom until a very young co-chair gently
stopped him. Then, others took turns to voice their concerns. These were
the stuff of day-to-day village life: anxiety about deliveries of
medical supplies; celebration following the announcement of the opening
of a small new factory for laundry powder. But the rocketing prices of
bread and other basics were lamented at length. The prosaic found its
voice, too: someone complained about children riding their bikes too
fast around the village. Not all decisions can be made at the most local level. Those that
need broader discussion go to district or cantonal assemblies (Rojava is
comprised of three cantons). Here, as in the villages, care is taken to
give non-Arab minorities and women prominence. Every assembly I
encountered was co-chaired by a woman. In one town, a very young Kurdish
woman enthused to me that never before had people like her — “the
youth” — been included in actual government. At meetings across the
region I was struck by the sense of a population trying to get used to
methods of self-government that were entirely unfamiliar after
generations of dictatorship.
I was repeatedly told that special efforts were made to include the
Arab, Assyrian and Turkmen minorities. Some Arabs confirmed this to me
directly, with something resembling bewilderment. In Jazira canton, the
two co-chairs of the district’s “institutions of self-government”, as
this collective system is awkwardly named, consisted of an aged Arab
sheikh and another young Kurdish woman. Accustomed to the traditional
hierarchies of the Middle East at such gatherings, I unthinkingly
addressed the senior-looking man. Without speaking, he turned to the
young woman to speak for the group. She then spoke Arabic for the
benefit of non-Kurdish participants. (...)
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the democratic experiment in
Rojava is the justice system that has been established alongside
self-government. In Jazira, one chair of the justice committee (again a
young woman) explained that since courts and punishment represented the
coercive dominance of the state, such institutions had been replaced by a
kind of community justice, where “social peace”, and not punishment,
was the objective. (...)» http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/50102294-77fd-11e5-a95a-27d368e1ddf7.html
ROJAVA
Between Euphrates and Tigris
West to East Mesopotamia
Between Turkey and is
North to South drama
Between turkish and evil tyranny
An innovative Democracy
That defend Humanity
And Humanity must give to her Liberty
Rojava, the west land, her name
International games are an horrible shame
United States of America must defend her
From the bad and negative forces protect a sister
NEVADA, «snow covered» ... from Spain to Mexico and from Mexico to United States of America.
Lake Tahoe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada#/media/File:Secret_Beach_-_Lake_Tahoe_East_Shore.jpg
