Arab Digest editor William Law is joined by the Kurdish American journalist Sirwan Kajjo. A recent parliamentary election in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq featured a high turnout and a strong showing by a new party, both indications that the grip of the two families that have controlled the region for decades is beginning to slip. Meantime Iraqi Kurdistan continues a delicate balancing act as the war in the Levant between Israel and Iran's proxies burns on.

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Iraqi Kurdistan walks a fine line

As Syrian rebels advanced on Damascus in a surprise lightning offensive, the Rojava Kurds seized territory from the Bashar Assad regime, and the Druze took up arms in their own region. After years of the lines in the conflict being frozen and the genocidal Assad dictatorship being "normalized," on Dec. 8 the unthinkable happened and the dictator fled. Suddenly the 13-year aim of the Syrian Revolution has been realized—the fall of the regime. But the lead rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has an ugly past, its partner the Syrian National Army (SNA) is in the political orbit of Turkish aspiring dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the threat of Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria looms closer. Amid a conflict now dominated by armed actors, can the unarmed civil resistance that began the revolution 13 years ago re-assert itself, and revive the secular-democratic spirit of 2011? In Episode 255 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes a hard look.

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Production by Chris Rywalt

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CounterVortex Podcast

Syria: after the fall of the regime

Amid jubilation following the overthrow of long-ruling dictator Bashar Assad, the only fighting in Syria is now between Arabs and Kurds—as the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) expels the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the town of Manbij. Ankara's design is clearly to expunge the Kurdish autonomous zone in the northeast region of Rojava. Yet there are also positive signs of an accommodation between the Rojava Kurds and the new revolutionary administration in Damascus. In Episode 256 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the new political landscape in Syria and tries to identify a way forward—past the threat of ethnic war and toward a multicultural democracy.

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Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 70 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 71!

Free Syria and the Kurdish question

In today’s episode we talk about the recent rebel offensive in Syria which has managed to topple the dictator Bashar al-Assad. First, we give a brief summary about Assad’s rule and the civil war since 2011 in Syria, mentioning the different local factions and foreign powers involved. Then we talk about the democratic-confederalist kurdish liberation movement in the North and Eastern parts of the country, its repression by Turkey and the fate of the project in the context of the regime change in Syria. We end by listing some media and other resources from where we personally get our news about Syria and Rojava, mentioning what biases each outlet has.

=====

Re(Sources):
Unsorted sources
https://medyanews.net
https://syria.liveuamap.com/
https://syria.liveuamap.com/en/time/06.12.2024

https://kongra-star.org/eng/about-us/
https://anfenglish.com/news
https://rojavainformationcenter.org/
https://medyanews.net/
https://www.freeocalan.org/about
https://internationalistcommune.com

https://twitter.com/starrcongress
https://twitter.com/SDF_Syria
https://twitter.com/MazloumAbdi


https://twitter.com/RojavaNetwork
https://twitter.com/Vigil4Ocalan
https://twitter.com/RevistaLegerin
https://twitter.com/RojavaNetwork/status/1868790045290926469
https://twitter.com/YpgInt

journalists to follow
https://twitter.com/vvanwilgenburg
https://twitter.com/fgeerdink
https://twitter.com/jamesstout
https://twitter.com/MattBroomfield1

Artwork from https://www.flickr.com/people/kurdishstruggle/, edited by Grecu.

LS. 005 – The Syrian revolution and the fate of Rojava w/ the Lenesx gang [EN]

Wheels of Revolution

Sendung zum diesjährigen 8. März 2025 mit diversen Beiträgen zu internationalen feministischen Themen. Von Literaturtipps bishin zu Beiträgen mit Gästinnen, insprierenden und kämpferischen Liedern und Parolen. 

Rotewelle_02_03_2025

In Episode 268 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the continued fighting in Syria since the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship in December. The recent outburst of violence in the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast made headlines, but this week also saw anti-regime protests by Druze in Syria's south. And fighting has never stopped between forces aligned with the new transition government and those of the Kurdish autonomous zone in the northeast. The situation is complicated by continuing military adventures on Syrian territory by foreign powers—Israel, Turkey, Russia and the US. Will Syrians be able to overcome these challenges and forge a democratic and multicultural order, in repudiation of sectarianism, ethno-nationalism and Great Power intrigues?

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Production by Chris Rywalt

We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 68 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 69!

Free Syria and the Kurdish question II

Die PKK will die Waffen niederlegen und sich auflösen, doch die Türkei greift das zum großen Teil kurdisch besiedelte und derzeit faktisch autonome Gebiet im Norden Syriens (Rojava) weiter beständig an. Erst vor wenigen Tagen soll dabei nach kurdischen Angaben eine Familie mit zwei Erwachsenen und 7 Kindern durch den Angriff einer türkischen Drohne auf ihr Dorf in der Nähe von Kobanê getötet worden sein. Wie ernsthaft ist da der von Erdogans Koalitionär Devlet Bahceli angestoßene Friedensprozess? Schließlich hat es in den Jahren 2013-15 schon einmal einen ganz ähnlichen "Friedensprozess" gegeben, den Erdogan dann im Sande verlaufen ließ. Ist das ganze vielleicht nur ein Ablenkungsmanöver? Soll sich ein Teil der Opposition damit beschäftigen, während es das eigentliche Ziel ist, den Bürgermeister von Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu mit fadenscheinigen juristischen Anschuldigungen, darunter angebliche Zusammenarbeit mit der PKK, aus dem Verkehr zu ziehen? Ekrem Imamoglu will schließlich als Präsidentschaftskandidat antreten und hätte durchaus Chancen. Mako Qocgiri vom Kurdischen Zentrum für Öffentlichkeit e. V. Civaka Azad, geht im Gespräch mit Radio Dreyeckland indessen davon aus, dass die Türkei den Friedensprozess tatsächlich brauche, um nicht das Opfer eines von den USA betriebenen Planes zu werden. Die Region solle umgestaltet werden und die Kurd*innen seien die Achillesverse der Türkei und Irans. Das habe Bahceli gesehen und sei deshalb auf sie zugegangen. Die kurdische Seite bleibe aber durchaus ein selbständiger Akteur.

Friedensprozess Türkei/PKK nur eine Ablenkung?

Track Description:

“Kobanî (Daughters of the Fire)”
This is not a song.
It’s a fracture in time.
A howl echoing through burnt soil and rusted breath.
Where the daughters of the mountains stood—not as myth, not as martyr—but as memory sharpened into steel.
Against a death cult cloaked in god’s lies, they didn’t kneel.
They didn’t pray.
They became the storm.

Broken meters mirror broken homes.
Odd time signatures like fractured lullabies from mothers who buried their children with their own hands.
The guitars don’t play—they testify.
The drums don’t keep time—they interrogate it.
This is progressive metal reconfigured as ancestral vengeance.
A hymn for every voice silenced in the rubble.
A curse against every empire that mistook silence for surrender.
And in its core: a whisper, barely audible—
"We are still here."

Joe Qasso - Kobane

“Low Life” is an instrumental exploration of the human condition — stripped of names, flags, gods, and inherited masks.
No lyrics. No doctrine. Only sound.
A slow-burning descent through identity’s hollow core, where a single candle flickers in the fog, and a raven watches — not as omen, but as witness.

This is a rejection of the cages we were born into.
A requiem for forced belonging.
Music for the ones who feel like strangers in every homeland.
You don’t need to understand it.
You just need to feel it.

JoeQasso - Low Life

In today’s episode we talk with Alexis Daloumis about his documentary Belkî Sibê. The doc shows his experiences fighting in the International Freedom Battalion during 2017 as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces against ISIS, and the socio-political changes in the liberated areas. We talk with Alexis about the actual real way that the revolution is being implemented on the ground, from what he could tell as an outsider.  In the second part we focus on the filming and editing process of the documentary.  

=====
Re(Sources):

Belki Sibe (2023)
http://belkisibe.com/ 
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29341560/ 

Alexis Daloumis
https://www.instagram.com/alexisdaloumis/ 
https://linktr.ee/alexisdaloumis 

International Freedom Battalion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Freedom_Battalion 

Rojava Information Center (RIC)
https://rojavainformationcenter.org/ 

 
Art by Grecu

Music
Le Daye, by Alexandros Miaris feat. Beshwar Kordy: 
https://youtu.be/EI8GG2Ux4jU 
https://www.alexandrosmiaris.com/ 
Punx for Rojava, by Adrestia 
https://youtu.be/MeUdfT1AGYU   
https://adrestia.bandcamp.com/ 


Ep. 039 – Belkî Sibê: Fighting for the Rojava revolution, w/ Alexis [EN]

(Descontrol, 2024). Con el Comité de Jineolojî de Ctalaunya; y Nelida Molina Morgado, vocera de Trawunche Madrid.
El libro que tienes en las manos es el resultado de un trabajo colectivo que se inició en 2018 y que ha continuado hasta el 2023. Más allá, es el resultado de 50 años de lucha del Movimiento de Liberación del Kurdistán, de organización, de ideología, de sueños, de esfuerzos, de sacrificios y de convicción.

Presentación del libro Mujer, vida y libertad (Vol. II)

With rapid change sweeping a region still in the throes of wars the Kurdish people spread across four nations see an opportunity to secure if not their dream of a nation then autonomy within national federal structures that would secure their rights and culture as a people. Arab Digest editor William Law invites the Kurdish-American journalist Sirwan Kajjo onto the podcast to discuss the possibilities and the promises that lie within reach of the Kurds.

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The Kurds see an opening

Beitrag eines Iranischen Genossen zurlage nach den bombardierungen der Imperalisten Usa und Israel zum Wiederstand und im speziellen die Erklärungen der politschen Gefangenen Frauen im Evin Knast.
Ein Gespräch mit einer Genossin vom Filmclub Populaire über das Politische Projekt und das Aktuelle Programm
Gedanken zur Situation in Rojava und der Kurdischen Freiheitsbewegung.

Rotewelle_06_07_2025

This talk delivered by Professor René Provost explored important lessons on the promises and limits of non-state justice in conflict zones, specifically looking at the Kurdish-dominated Democratic Autonomous Administration of North East Syria.

Zones of armed conflict are spaces of disorder, which state and non-state belligerents alike aim to curtail through law. Starting in 2014, the Kurdish-dominated Democratic Autonomous Administration of North East Syria established its own courts and enacted its own laws, in civil as well as criminal matters. For a decade, this unrecognised system of administration of justice has struggled to bring social order to this war-afflicted territory. 

Meet our speaker and chair 

René Provost Ad.E. FRSC is the James McGill Professor of Justice Beyond the State at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. He joined the Faculty of Law of McGill University in 1994, where he was Associate Dean (Academic) from 2001 to 2003 and the founding Director of the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism from 2005 to 2010. Professor Provost teaches Public International Law, International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Environmental Law, Legal Anthropology, and various courses in legal theory.  His latest book is 'Rebel Courts – The Administration of Justice by Armed Insurgents' (Oxford University Press 2021), winner of the 2022 ICON-S Prize for Best Book in Public Law and the 2023 American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit for Creative Scholarship. 

Robert Lowe is Deputy Director of the LSE Middle East Centre and Co-Convenor of the Kurdish Studies Series at the LSE Middle East Centre. His main research interest is Kurdish politics, with particular focus on the Kurdish movements in Syria. He is Co-Editor of the Kurdish Studies Series, published by I.B. Tauris.



Kurdish Justice in Northeast Syria

The recent political reversal in Bolivia raises the question of whether the advances of nearly 20 years of rule by the indigenist left will survive—including a constitution that refounded the state as a "plurinational" republic. In Episode 299 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores how the lessons of the Bolivian experience can be applied to Syria, where the new revolutionary government faces a challenge in Kurdish and Druze demands for regional autonomy.

New fighting in the Kurdish district of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo city between government forces and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), armed wing of the Kurdish-led autonomous administration that still controls much of the country's northeast, points to the continued threat of ethnic war. Results in Syria's first post-revolution parliamentary elections (carried out in a controlled process by the central government, not popular vote) were tilted to the Sunni Arab majority. Exiled left-dissident Joseph Daher sees a consolidation of power by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the ostensibly disbanded Islamist formation that led the rebel offensive that toppled the old regime last December, and whose leader is the current interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa. Can the current transition process in Syria return to the secular-democratic values of the 2011 Arab Revolution without a rethinking of nationalist precepts?

 In Episode 299 of the CounterVortex podcast

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Bolivia, Syria & the challenge of plurinationalism

Radio LoRa 97.5 MHz – Unabhängig, widerständig, einzigartig

Radio LoRa setzt sich als politisches Lokalradio bereits seit 35 Jahren für eine offene und emanzipatorische Gesellschaft ein. Radio LoRa ist selbstverwaltet und achtet auf die Repräsentation von MigrantInnen und Geschlechtergerechtigkeit auf allen Ebenen des Radiobetriebs.

300 engagierte SendungsmacherInnen senden 24 Stunden am Tag aus dem Kreis 4 in Zürich: Sie spielen musikalische Perlen abseits des Mainstreams, berichten über das Weltgeschehen aus den unterschiedlichsten Perspektiven und informieren über alles, was in Zürich gerade läuft.
Das Programm von LoRa ist ein legendärer Dschungel: Wenn 300 Sendungsmachende rund 160 verschiedene Sendungen in 20 Sprachen produzieren, tönt keine Stunde wie die andere. LoRa ist so bunt und vielfältig wie die Meinungen, Kulturen und Musik der Menschen in Zürich.

Welcome to the LSE Middle East Centre's podcast feed.

The MEC builds on LSE's long engagement with the Middle East and North Africa and provides a central hub for the wide range of research on the region carried out at LSE.

Follow us and keep up to date with our latest event podcasts and interviews!

Libreria asociativa, distribuidora, editorial, taller de diseño y espacio de formación, Nociones Comunes.

Traficantes de Sueños nace con el propósito de ser un punto de encuentro y debate de las diferentes realidades de los movimientos sociales. Intentando trascender este ámbito, trata de ir aportando su granito de arena para enriquecer los debates, sensibilidades y prácticas que tratan de transformar este estado de cosas. Para ello construimos una librería asociativa, una editorial y un punto que coopera con redes de distribución alternativa.

Los textos de la editorial se publican con licencia Creative Commons

 Nos encontrarás en la C/Duque de Alba, 13, Metro:Tirso de Molina 28012 Madrid 

 Horario:
    Lunes- Cerrado por las mañanas- Tardes de 17:00 a 20:30  
    Martes-Viernes- 10.30-14.00 17.00-20.30
    Sábados- 11.00-14.00 17.00-20.30

y en Ateneo La Maliciosa, calle Peñuelas, 12
Metro: Embajadores 28005 Madrid

Horario: Martes-Viernes- 10.30-14.00 17.00-20.30
    Sábados- 11.00-14.00

¡Os esperamos!

Support my work on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/countervortex

Arab Digest is where business leaders and experts on the Middle East and North Africa come together to share analysis and insight about the issues in the region that matter most.
contact email: editor@arabdigest.org

Lene radicală, lene intersecțională, lene antiautoritară. Podcastul de stânga pe care îl poți asculta când nu ai chef de nimic.

New tracks tagged #rojava