00:00 Sarah Parker: Okay, so I've been asked to talk about solidarity. Some of you will know most or all of what I'm going to say, so apologies to you, but I hope some of it will be useful. I'm actually going to start a bit more widely and come down to more particular things, because — as both speakers said — there's a critical conjuncture at the moment for the people who are trying either to fight for their national rights, or to survive, or to bring down the Assad regime and resist sectarianism, whether you're talking about Syria, Iraq or Kurdistan. So of course you could say that all those people need solidarity. And to come back to Kamran's last point: the stronger and the more independent, or relatively independent, the forces are, and the more solidarity they have, the less easy it is for them to be co-opted by imperialism in one way or another. So that would be my starting point.
01:01 But on a general level, if you look at Syria and Iraq including Kurdistan, you've had many hundreds of thousands — maybe more than that — killed in the last few years: in Iraq in various ways, since the height of the Ba'athist regime, through the invasion, and now in Syria. And at the moment you've got millions of people with their lives turned absolutely upside down by the regime in Iraq, the invasion, the sectarian strife the West of course has promoted, and ISIS, [which] is explained as largely a product of that.
02:04 So what have we got in terms of people who need solidarity? Well, the mainstream opposition in Syria — a lot of it has been pretty much crushed, but there are still some people there, so I'm going to start with that. And of course some of it has collapsed into the arms of sponsors like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc. And as Gilbert pointed out, if they'd got the weapons they needed that situation might not have arisen. This reminds me, by the way, of exactly what happened when the Kurds and the Shia rose up in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War. The Americans and the British and what have you, they don't like mass uprisings — trends within that of independent thought, interested in national rights, social justice: they don't like it.
03:06 And of course we almost saw something similar with Kobanê. Maybe it was to an extent American reluctance to see ISIS get too out of hand, but I think it was mass pressure from the Kurds and their supporters that pointed up the embarrassment of letting this town fall — you know, some of the main people fighting ISIS, doing it quite well, and we're supposed to be fighting ISIS too. So you've got these millions of people in this situation who need assistance.
03:36 And besides the Syrian opposition, which is trying to keep going, you've also got Rojava. I think Aleppo may be critical quite soon. The government forces are making headway and ISIS are making headway. Now there are opposition forces there, and I believe there's at least one substantial area controlled by a [?] Kurdish and Arab fighting force, so it's going to be pretty grim if and when there's a fight for Aleppo. If that happens they too will need solidarity.
04:07 Let me say something about Rojava. I expect most of you know, but of course they declared autonomy in three areas of northern Syria in January 2012 [?], when it was made clear that — I think it was the Geneva II conference — was not going to allow the Kurds to go there as Kurds; in other words, as usual, their national rights are not going to be recognised. Well, why is it important? Of course the people there are fighting to survive, on the one hand, in the face of ISIS.
05:08 And we don't need to be in any doubt about what ISIS can do. In terms of killing people, probably the largest number they've killed was in Shengal in northern Iraq, in the summer, before the intensified siege of Kobanê got under way. But also, the people in Kobanê are fighting for a model of participatory democracy and gender equality — which is important in itself to us as socialists and anti-racists, but it's particularly important in the context of Iraq and Syria at the moment. They do believe in respect for diversity, and I think they've probably drawn some lessons from the past: they're not trying to set up a narrow nationalist state. They do believe in respect for diversity of religion and ethnic groups, and that's obviously important in the present climate. And there is also increasing cooperation between them and some parts of the opposition in Syria. So there's a load of reasons.
06:11 Just a bit more on why we need to support Kobanê. I think it's still crucial because, as people have said, the US and EU governments are not very happy when they see people fighting for their own independent ideas — people outside their control, ideas of gender equality, social justice. I think the Americans were forced, as I said, to intervene to some degree, but you have to look at the reluctance to meet the very reasonable demand for anti-tank weapons and other weapons. ISIS had all this gear that they'd got in Iraq. It was very difficult, obviously, as people know, for the people in Kobanê, with not much more than Kalashnikovs and RPGs, to defend themselves. And it took over a month, maybe six weeks — at the most crucial point, when it was uncertain whether they would survive — it took a month or six weeks for it to be allowed, grudgingly, by the powers that be, to have a moderate quantity of heavy weapons brought through by forces from the Kurdistan Regional Government area.
07:43 And the PYD leader commented, of course, that he'd been going round Europe and they wouldn't sell the weapons, never mind give them. So again this points up the reluctance of the powers that be to support such forces, and that makes it all the more important that the diaspora and all the rest of us should be supporting them.
08:14 And I do think that — again, Kamran touched on it — will the PKK and the PYD be co-opted? Well, we hope they won't. They've been at it for a long time and they know how it goes, but of course the Americans and EU governments will be doing their best either to break them or to co-opt them. I think that's one thing we can be sure about. And they may well of course try to use the tribal dynasty that we unfortunately have in part of the KRG territory, and maybe they can use the PUK as well.
09:16 So, to come back to what people can do. I'll say a little bit about Syria, but I'll start off on Iraq. I think we've got a big problem here because there aren't many solidarity organisations. There are huge numbers of people displaced, of course, by the war. Some of them have managed to go back; conditions are still very dark. But since the summer, 500,000 people [have been] displaced from the towns in the plain of Mosul — people in Mosul having problems, and the people in Shengal were attacked by ISIS. And the international governments and the relief agencies haven't really stepped up. People are not getting enough food, shelter [or] health [care] [?].
10:16 In the case of Shengal, the other day the PKK leadership issued a statement saying that the situation for the 10,000 people still on the mountain is fairly critical, and that they intend to attempt to liberate the area in the next month — presumably before the winter sets in. They said that they really do need anti-tank weaponry etc. for that, which they don't have, but they're going to try in particular to clear the area to the north of Shengal, to reopen the corridor and do more than that. And they would hope that the Kurdistan Regional Government will assist them, but they're not holding their breath. So I imagine there's going to be more fighting around there.
11:18 Also to do with Iraq, there is Roj Women, the Kurdish women's organisation, and Peace in Kurdistan here have set up a campaign to try to aid the Yazidi women and other women who have suffered at the hands of ISIS, and they do have some contacts elsewhere in Iraq. So that is one area to work on. But I think that's another area we need to look at — Iraq — because there aren't many solidarity organisations, and I think maybe campaigns around refugees might be one way to approach it.
11:50 On Syria, just briefly: we've supported a smallish organisation called the Syria Solidarity Movement since a conference that we helped organise some months ago. At the moment they're running a thing called Forgotten Cities — if you want to look on Facebook, the page is called Syria's Forgotten Cities. There's an event at the end of the week, and there's an art exhibition fundraiser.
12:23 On Rojava, in Syria, there's masses people can do. There's a London group which does other things but is doing solidarity for the Kurds in Syria — Estella's here if anybody's interested. That group is open to people; you can get the details off her, or [find it] on Facebook.
12:54 I would urge people to do some reading if they feel they don't know much about the Kurdish issue. Kamran's given us a good rundown. I've got a list here that has some websites and books on it. Of course there's a big diaspora, there are a lot of Kurdish activists running things, as I'm sure you know. So if you don't know much about it and would like to get interested, you can contact Peace in Kurdistan and talk to them. They've got materials around unbanning the PKK. But just go on Facebook and find out what the community centres are doing — the people who post stuff, so there's news all the time. People have to look at this list and get some ideas. Certainly in Haringey and Hackney there are events all the time; people can just go along and talk to people and join in.
13:26 One important campaign is for material aid. Heyva Sor — if you look that up on Facebook — they send medical aid, and they're running campaigns for medical aid for Kobanê and Shengal, and [for] the massive numbers of refugees around Kobanê. That's one of the places. It's not just Kurdistan: the Turkish state of course doesn't mind them coming out of Syria, [but is] not so ready to help. A lot of aid is needed. That's one thing people can do.
13:57 Working on the ban on the PKK, and pressure on EU governments — I think generally on refugees, for not meeting their obligations, I do think that's a way in. People can work with some [campaigns] against xenophobia. I'm sure — who are campaigning around this disgraceful decision to stop paying for search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean. Of course that involves all sorts of people; there was a Syrian [boat that] went down the other day.
15:04 So Estella's here if anybody doesn't know her — she's [got] ideas and stuff they're involved with. I hope I haven't missed out too much, and that's it. Thank you very much.
---