Kobane has been saved from ISIS, here’s why we must talk about Kobane.

Testo italiano qui • I want to celebrate you, women of Kobane, because the Kurdish Resistance is saving every one of us. Because you have won, but your victory is hardly spoken of.  Your smiles are more credible, now. The women of Kobane have been resisting for months and have kept smiling throughout, even in the most devastating – apparently desperate – situations.  

“Love is how every superiority is called, every ability to understand, to smile when in pain. It is love for ourselves and for our destiny, it’s a loving adherence to what the inscrutable has in mind for us – even when we can’t see or understand it, yet. It is what we aim for". (Herman Hesse).
Is this what it is? Love?

Some say that the opposite of fear isn’t courage at all, it’s love – precisely – and we better believe them. There’s nothing like love, for somebody or for oneself that gives us the guts to react, no matter what’s at stake. In celebrating these brave and intelligent women, I’ll also try to explain why we must talk about Kobane, speaking in a loud voice and passing on current factual and significant information, and we must keep doing it.

Women in those regions have been fighting fundamentalism not just in the last few months against ISIS: they’ve been engaged for years on the front line of their exhausting battle. The following video, shot in 2012, is one of three making up a documentary meant to introduce the viewer to the Female Fighters in Kurdistan and the environment they operate in:

Kobane has been freed from ISIS now. But how much coverage did this victory get from international media? Virtually none, if one considers what’s at stake here, something concerning all of us. Yes, virtually none, really, if one thinks of the horrific rise of ISIS, a very real threat to all of us.
And, look out: we’re not simply threatened by a bunch of cutthroats, rather by a continuously expanding economic power. A world power, maybe the richest terrorist party in history, past or current:  it is fed billions by some entities that profit from its growth. They are the breed of powers that has declared the third world war. And not to one or a few countries, to everyone of them, to everybody. This war is waged against the very concept of democracy.

Given all this (do journalists who write for major multinational newspapers know all this? Or is it only girlies who know such stuff?), given all this, - I was saying -, does it make sense that so little is written about this victory?

Virtually no coverage, really, if you consider that the Kobane fighters are defending all of us, as Charb – Charlie Hebdo’s editor -, aptly wrote: Aujourd’hui, je suis kurde. Je pense kurde, je parle kurde, je chante kurde, je pleure kurde – today I am Kurdish. I think Kurdish, I speak Kurdish, I sing Kurdish, I cry Kurdish. The Kurds besieged in Syria are not “Kurds”, they are the whole of Humanity, resisting darkness. They fight to defend their life, their families, their country all right, but – willy-nilly – they are the only bastion against the progress of the “Islamic State”. They are protecting us all, not so much against the blurred Islam that the Daech terrorists do not represent, rather against the most barbarian of gangsterisms. How can we trust the so-called coalition against the slaughterers when many of its members have shared with same slaughterers strategic, political and economical interests? And often still do? Today, against cynicism and death stands only the Kurdish people. This is what Charb was writing, before being himself wiped out by that very danger that he had recognised so well.

And he was right. Yes, they are saving us too. Had they lost, it would have been a mighty problem, wouldn’t it? Still, all of that has passed by barely noticed. Try and ask your plumber or a friend who’s not on twitter, what they know about it.
This is weird. It’s weird this story didn’t make the news: when you look at the disparity in strength between winners and losers it looks like a miracle.

And somebody did notice! Somebody who, back in November, was writing: ISIS is about to be beaten by lightly armed, tea-drinking feminists. If this doesn’t prove God’s existence... what does?

The town has won its resistance but has paid a dear price: it’s virtually flattened – just like many cities at the end of WWII.
But it pulled through, and this is some kind of miracle, considering that nobody – or very few – provided any real help. On one side there was an army armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry provided by powerful allies (many of them from the western world) and on the other side just civilians, poor in resources, lightly armed, with little late help form outside.

Small strategic Kobane was squeezed between ISIS’ cutthroats and Turkey, a traditional enemy of the Kurds, whose pro-Islam government is even thought to be one of the financial backers of the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria. Seriously, how could they prevail? Their hopes rested on the courage of an extraordinary people, an equalitarian cohesive society, where women count.

The press at that moment jumped at the opportunity of emphasizing the folkloric sides of this desperate battle. While the true supporters of the Kurd people looked on in great apprehension, sending their pledges of solidarity, bearing no hope. Bernard Henry-Levy wrote, on October 12th 2014: Kobane will fall, it’s a matter of hours, days maybe. And he went on explaining what a catastrophe this fall was going to be for the western world.

On October 17th the Daily Mail wrote: An army of women in desperate battle to defend Kobane from Islamic State.

 Distruzioni e lutti si sono susseguiti a lungo...

And against all odds, Kobane resisted. The hopeless battle has been won, in such a heroic way as to be epic, in such an epic way as to appear as a sort of mocking prove of God’s existence, in the face of those bloody murderers, claiming to be God-sent, they thought they were taking a stroll.

ISIS beaten by lightly armed, tea-drinking feminists. This is something worth celebrating!

The news of this wonderful victory against this new Nazism was confirmed on January 27th 2015, the Day of Remembrance. A splendid piece of news that should have sparked fever and fireworks in the media and among the peoples, and was instead kind of muted, disposed of in cursory reports.

Yes, it was hardly talked about, if one considers that the recent carnage in Paris is but a small sign of how close and serious the threat of this fundamentalism is, one which has already sparked a new world war. It is not a conventional war, it’s fought on different fronts and with different methods, as compared to the ones in the past century.
Some independent newspapers have talked about it (but not very much) and the keen “peones” of the net – we’re proud to be counted among them.

Among the latter somebody took the trouble to go and see, some sent us news, some have provided us with documentary evidence.

And some harboured hope to the point of believing: at the beginning of the siege, Malali Joya wrote to the women of Kobane: you’re not alone in this challenge, all the people who love freedom and progress are with you. With your fight against oppression, you women are a kick in the stomach of ISIS and all medieval minded fundamentalists who value women half of what they value men, and consider them tools for their own beastly cravings’ satisfaction. (…) Today our people, inspired by your fearless fight and in order to be at your side, will rub the taleban and jihadi terrorists’ snouts in the dirt, the snouts of these bloody and cruel creatures of the United States. Your nation, one whose brave women take up arms and fight side by side with its men against oppression and colonisation will never be conquered. Victory is yours. In the past you already squashed and humiliated the brutal ISIS, and all progressive people stand in awe of you.

All of this was true and while the battle seemed to be a lost one some newsmakers paid some attention. But why is it then that once victory had been secured, all major media outlets were distracted and silent about a victory that should be considered historic?

Thank God for twitter that keeps us abreast. The media, absent-minded as they have been, were also inappropriate because they didn’t understand – or pretended not to – the extraordinary role women played in this battle. Women and ISIS are systems, two political systems deeply set against one another.
This is news: ISIS was defeated by neither the United States nor by the powers within Muslim territories that have declared war on it: neither Iran, nor Saudi Arabia have done anything. Isis was defeated by a persecuted people, one that those same powers have a hard time recognising, let alone thanking; a very advanced people in terms of their political vision, when it comes to inter-gender relations. This is why nobody, really nobody, is keen on celebrating this victory. Women’s role is at the heart of what’s at stake in the current world war, a war that has women as its primary targets, whether the war wagers are aware of it or aren’t. And if you don’t agree, before you hang on to your prejudice, before you formulate hasty judgements, take the time to read the links provided here, for a little more in depth understanding. This post is very much based on images, but there’s a lot of content. It’s just a matter of feeling a little curiosity.

By the way there’s people – even among men – who already understand these issues. Some do sense something and, not without some confusion, clearly relate the concept of how “opposites” can in fact be very close to one another. 

Bottom line, the stakes here are high and they concern each and every one of us. They demand that we explore the roots and heart of patriarchal violence in order to understand it, as the only way to defeat and overcome it.

The struggle here  – as Charb had understood – is between giving re-birth to a possible civilisation and letting all justice be defeated.
This worldwide struggle is going to be long, bloody and hard. In Kurd lands the fight is certainly not over, it’s fully ablast (and luckily Isis seems to keep losing ground).
This struggle is also among us: it concerns us and we too are fighting it every day: by being or not being there, by paying or not paying attention, we are choosing sides, and we count.

With the victory in Kobane a very important challenge has been overcome, a seed has been planted that could save us all.

 

Thank you, you Kurd resistants. To you, women of Kobane, a very special thank you. I want to thank you, celebrate you, remind the whole world about you.
Traduzione di Francesca M. (grazie Francesca!)

Fonte: Kobane è salva, parliamo di Kobane / politicafemminile