ECR Videos
Check the ECR youtube channel for the videos of ECR events and video materials on Rojava.
Rojava Roundtable & Reportback - 2023 Summer Intensive Course - The Institute for social ecology
Eleanor Finley, Arthur Pye, Berivan Omar, and Anya Briy, activists from the Kurdish Freedom Movement, hold a rich and dynamic roundtable discussion about the Rojava Revolution (2012-present). They go beyond a “Rojava 101,” by diving into the participants’ lived experiences and unpacking the revolution’s enduring contributions, lessons, and challenges. You can help make more programs like this possible by supporting the Institute for Social Ecology at https://givebutter.com/SupportTheISE#. Recorded and edited by the Elements of Mutual Aid ( @Elements_of_MA )
Report Back from Rojava: Restorative Justice, Direct Democracy & Pluralism
A report-back from North East Syria by several activists, writers, and researchers who have recently traveled to the region and are sharing updates and observations from their trips: Arthur Pye is a writer and community organizer based in the Pacific Northwest. He is a member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava, and recently spent one year living and conducting research in North and East Syria. Clara spent two years living in Rojava working first with the Rojava Information Center and then spending time with the women’s movement, including seven months with Mala Jin (Kurdish for Women’s House), the women’s restorative justice system. She has just returned from Syria in the past few months and is excited to be in dialogue with people interested in the work happening there. Anya Briy is a member of the Emergency Committee for Rojava, based in New York. Her writing on Rojava has appeared in Jacobin, The Nation, Truthout, and other outlets. She just returned from a 3-month long stay in the region.
Virtual Memorial for Meredith Tax
A memorial event for Meredith Tax on May 7, 2023, feminist author, organizer, and co-founder of the ECR who passed away in September 2022
Legacy of Alina Sanchez (Legerin Ciya), International martyr of Rojava
ECR’s own Sergio Palencia Frener presents about Alina Sánchez, Legerin Çîya, an international martyr of the Rojava Revolution. Sergio Palencia is a Guatemalan sociologist working on the history of the Guatemalan guerrilla rebellion in 1981 and the genocidal campaigns against Maya indigenous communities in 1982. The talk is about an unpublished speech by Alina Sánchez, her ideas on the Rojava revolution, and Sergio’s memories of her.
Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Capitalist Politics with Silvia Federici and Joy James
A panel co-organized by ECR and the University of Rojava’s Institute for Social Sciences. Drawing on various traditions of radical feminist thought and action, this panel explores feminist perspectives on capitalism and anti-capitalist struggles. How can we benefit from a feminist perspective in the current moment of deepening ecological, economic, and political crises, aggravated and laid bare by the pandemic? How can a feminist perspective inform anti-systemic struggles and visions of alternative forms of social organization that would transcend capitalism and all other systems of oppression? Who are the protagonists of current anticapitalist struggles? Does a feminist perspective point us to a new internationalism?
The panel features Silvia Federici and Joy James in conversation with Sarah Marcha of the Andrea Wolf Institute of Jineolojî Academy in Rojava.
ECR in Solidarity with HDP Members on Trial
In one week, 108 members, deputies, mayors and co-chairs of the progressive, pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) stand trial in Ankara, Turkey, in the so-called Kobani case, a case which will determine the fate of democracy in Turkey. The defendants' crime is calling for solidarity with the people of Kobani in North East Syria when they were besieged by Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014. They are facing literally thousands of years in prison. Please share the video on your social media to show your solidarity with the HDP.
Giran Ozcan on the History, Politics and Oppression of the HDP in Turkey
Giran Ozcan, Representative of the People’s Democratic Party in Turkey (HDP) in Washington, D.C. gives a brief talk on the history, politics and ongoing oppression of the HDP, including the most recent attempt by the Turkish government to close it.
Giran Ozcan is the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Representative to the United States of America. After graduating from the University of Warwick with a sociology degree, he worked at the Centre for Turkey Studies in London between 2011 and 2016. He was a founding editor at The Region, an online news outlet covering the Middle East. He has been working with the HDP in its overseas representative offices since 2016 and was appointed to be its US representative in September 2017.
Help Rojava Fight the Pandemic
While the pandemic has put a huge strain on health systems around the world, people in North and East Syria, also called Rojava, are at especially high risk from Coronavirus. After managing to keep the number of cases low, recently the region has seen a spike in Covid diagnoses.
Because of Turkey’s ongoing attacks and the World Health Organization’s refusal to provide test kits or aid, the region is currently unable to prevent, diagnose, and treat coronavirus.
One way of helping the people living in North and East Syria is by donating to Heyva Sor, a Kurdish organization providing humanitarian aid to the region and specifying the donation go for Covid aid to Rojava: http://www.heyvasoruk.org/. Another way to help is to urge your congressional representatives to demand that Turkey stop its aggression against the region: https://www.defendrojava.org/call-congress
transformative Justice and Anti-Carceral Politics
Organized by the Global Prison Abolition Coalition, co-founded by ECR.
Watch the panel here.
A Call for United Action for Prisoners
On the international day of action for political prisoners, the Emergency Committee for Rojava would like to bring attention to the fate of the political prisoners in Turkey. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, similar to other countries, Turkey passed an amnesty law to alleviate the spread of the Coronavirus in prisons. This law released 90,000 prisoners. Those released included violent offenders such as mafia leaders. Yet, tens of thousands political prisoners were excluded. The political prisoners of Turkey are not imprisoned due to violent crimes. Rather, their crime was to dare criticize the Turkish government and promote democracy.
The video was made in response to the call for the World Day Action by Solidarity Keeps Us Alive Campaign.
Central American Indigenous Movements and the Kurdish Movement
From their history of oppression to varying forms of struggles and practices of radical democracy, indigenous and Kurdish communities have a lot in common. They both present potential alternatives to patriarchal and capitalist state formations and have historical roots in ecologically conscious ways of life. Both can trace their roots in their region back to very ancient times and have been subjected to waves of genocidal attacks by later settlers. This panel discussion looks at the radical democratic processes of indigenous movements of the Americas with a focus on Central Americas and the Kurdish movement in Rojava to develop a deeper understanding of these geographically distinct, yet ideologically proximate movements and to develop solidarities among them.
Watch on youtube.
Revolution in Rojava: A Democratic Politics for an Ecological Future
What will happen to Rojava in northeastern Syria now that ISIS has been defeated by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces? The Emergency Committee for Rojava presents a report by journalist and author Debbie Bookchin, who has just returned from the autonomous region, and LSE anthropology professor David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs and Debt: The First 5,000 Years.
Discussion with Ozlem Goner and Meredith Tax
ECR members Ozlem Goner, Meredith Tax and Matthew Whitley discuss the film Sur: Ax u Welat about the 2015-2016 military operations carried out by the Turkish state against the Kurdish opposition in the Kurdish-majority cities of southeastern Turkey.
They also discuss the need of a US-based solidarity movement with Rojava and the Kurdish movement and introduce the ECR and its objectives.
Feminism & Democracy with Meredith Tax & Debbie Bookchin
Moderated by Mia Herndon at the Kurdish Film Festival hosted by 8ball