To the Gilet Jaunes, to those who demonstrate, who are on the barricades and are blocking the streets, who occupy their schools, who are on strike and who organize themselves. We greet you as the Internationalist Commune of Rojava, the western part of Kurdistan, in northern Syria.

With great attention, we have been following the peoples’ revolt in France over the past weeks. We are impressed by the determination of the protesters as well as by the level of the repression from police and state. We send our solidarity to everyone who is confronted with the direct and indirect violence of the state. Because of your actions, the insurrection of the Gilets Jaunes has gained fame even here in northern Syria, where — at a time when the Turkish state is again threatening us with war — everyone is hoping for inspiring changes.

France has a long history of resistance and civil uprisings, which we shouldn’t reduce just to the French revolution and Mai ’68. The history of resistance also includes the rural revolts in the Middle Ages, all the local, regional and independent resistance struggles against the colonization of the state, the labor movements, the fights of migrant workers, the proletarian districts and centuries of women’s struggle against the patriarchal system.

The Paris Commune has shown that it can be possible for the people to take the power and remains an important source of inspiration for revolutionaries across the globe. In this sense, the call from the Gilets Jaunes of Commercy — which we relate to as well — has been a source of hope and a sign that the movement can achieve that “very important thing, that the movement of the Gilets Jaunes reclaims its diverse forms everywhere, even beyond purchasing power!” to that “power to the people, by the people, for the people.”

This is what is currently being experimented with here in Rojava, where the different people organize themselves, beyond the nation state, on the basis of democratic communal assemblies towards a system called democratic confederalism.

Of course, reorganizing a society without state is not an easy thing. Of course it needs time, investment and education — but it also gives us the most intense joy.

We have to find a way, as a society, to live together in freedom. Thousands of people remember the days on the squares, the highways, the streets and the occupied schools as important and significant moments. These actions and experiences will be talked about for months and years to come. Why? Because with these actions and occupations society is rising up collectively. The people (re)discover what it means to live in a communal way.

To achieve a communal life, it is necessary to unravel the myth of the nation state which represents a false Republican unity. We have to take down the borders that separate us, as well as find the capacity to reclaim our many different identities, to revive our cultures, and “regionalized” languages. And as women we have to take back what has been taken from us, make our voices audible and take our place in all parts of society.

We have to work towards building another economic system — socialist, controlled by, and coming from the people, on the basis of cooperative production, self-government and ecological values. Finally, as youths, with the spirit of resistance, we have to become a motor in a movement that will not accept any compromise.

The whole world has to understand that for this movement “winning” doesn’t mean a mere increase in the minimum wage, neither the increase of the real purchasing power. To win means to overcome the stage of revindication and to begin to construct another system of self-governance, building on existing alternative structures. To win means facing contradictions. To try, to fail, to try again. To never lose the hope that we can emancipate from the state and the existing structures of oppression. So that we can live freely.

Solidarity with the Gilets Jaunes and all those who resist in France and everywhere else in the world.
Down with Turkish fascism.

Bijî Berxwedana Fransa! Bijî berxwedana Rojava !
Bijî Rêber Apo !
Jin Jiyan Azadî !

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To learn more about the International Commune of Rojava, check out their website.

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