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Resistance Is Freedom a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis on the Armed Self- Defence of the YPJ in Rojava

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Resistance Is Freedom a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis on the Armed Self- Defence of the YPJ in Rojava Resistance is Freedom A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis on the armed self- defence of the YPJ in Rojava Sophie Polig Global Political Studies Peace and Conflict Studies Bachelor Thesis, 15 credits Spring Semester 2020 Supervisor: Dr. Ane Kirkegaard Word count: 13773 Abstract This Bachelor Thesis focuses on the ideological, philosophical and political discourse of women’s liberation in the context of the feminist revolution of Rojava with specific attention to the armed self-defence of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The aim of this study is to understand the armed self-defence of the YPJ from within the women’s movement and their logics, and the power systems and mechanisms of structural violence their understanding is embedded in. To answer the research question, how can one understand the armed self-defence of the YPJ in relation to the discourse of women’s liberation in the context of the revolution in Rojava?, a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (archaeology and genealogy) is applied to explore the discourse of women’s liberation to outline the discourse of self-defence of the YPJ. The aim of this study can be said to be counter-reactionary to the critiques of liberal feminists towards the YPJ, that seem to disregard the power relations women in Rojava are trapped in. The thesis concludes that to understand the armed self-defence of the YPJ it is imperative to consider the freedom proposal of Abdullah Öcalan, the mental leader of the movement. The discourse of women’s liberation regarding armed self-defence clearly leans on and results in the freedom proposal, resisting the hegemonic systems and power relations of nation-statism, capitalism, and patriarchy. The YPJ makes use of legitimate and natural self-defence in their struggle for liberation. The struggle is realized on an organizational level in the army by breaking free from patriarchal stereotypes and oppression and re-creating a new army culture in women’s terms. The constant struggle for liberation and for an ethical society is understood as the necessary process in which freedom is found. Therefore, the armed resistance of the YPJ evolves around the deep desire to achieve and maintain freedom. The YPJ and their armed resistance inspires to rethink violence and an anti-militarist redistribution of the means of violence. The study implies that there is an urgent need in social science and specifically peace research to abandon universalized models concerning peace, freedom and resistance, to be more inclusive towards understandings of the matter that are not based in the Euro-Christian tradition. Key words: armed self-defence; discourse analysis; feminist revolution of Rojava; freedom; resistance; women’s liberation; women’s self-defence. 1 List of Abbreviations AKP = Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party) FDA = Foucauldian Discourse Analysis FSA= al-Jaysh as-Sūrī al-Ḥurr (Free Syrian Army) ISIS = The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, known as well as ISIL, IS or Daesh PKK= Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê (Kurdistan’s Worker’s Party) TEV-DEM = Tevgera Civaka Demokratîk (Movement for a Democratic Society) WANA = West Asia and North Africa YAJK = Yekitiya Azadiya Jinên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Women’s Freedom Union) YJWK = Yekitiya Jinên Welatparezên Kurdistan (Kurdistan Patriotic Women’s Union) YPG = Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (People’s Protection Unit) YPJ = Yekîneyên Parastina Jinê (Women’s Protection Unit) 2 Table of Content 1. Introduction 4 1.1. Problem Statement 4 1.2. Research Aim and Research Questions 5 1.3. Relevance and Academic Contributions 6 1.4. Delimitations 7 1.5. Thesis Outline 8 2. Methodological Consideration and Analytical Framework 9 2.1. Design and Methodological Choice 9 2.2. About the Researcher 10 2.3. Method 11 2.4. Research Technique 12 2.5. Data 15 2.6. Analytical Framework: Capitalist Modernity versus Democratic Modernity 16 2.6.1. Capitalist Modernity in Northern Syria 17 2.6.2. Armed self-defence of the YPJ in the Democratic Modernity 20 3. Analysis: Our Resistance is Freedom – Slogan YPJ 23 3.1. Freedom and Mental Defence 23 3.2. Mental Defence and Physical Defence 26 3.3. Physical Defence and Community 29 3.4. Physical Defence and Freedom 32 4. Concluding Discussion 35 5. Bibliography 39 5.1. Main Dataset 42 6. Appendix I: Timeline 47 7. Appendix II: List of Elements 50 8. Appendix III: List of Original Quotes 55 3 1. Introduction In the spring of 2011, a revolution arose in Rojava, Syrian Kurdistan, within the context of the Arab Spring in Syria and the following Syrian war (Flach, et al., 2016:xxiii). Rojava makes up the area in northern Syria where the majority of the Syrian Kurdish population resides in an otherwise ethically mixed area, including Ezidis, Arabs, Armenians, Syriacs, Chaldeans and other smaller population groups like Turkmens, Chechens, Circassians and Nawar (Ibid:2,18- 33). Many people of the different ethnic backgrounds in the area encouraged a new system for Northern Syria according to the concepts of ‘Democratic Modernity’ and ‘Democratic Confederalism’ (Ibid:51). The alternative system for Rojava is based on autonomy, feminism, ecology and radical grassroots democracy, promoting the principles of freedom and justice (Dirik, 2014:17,19). The models were developed by Abdullah Öcalan, the ideological leader of the Kurdish Freedom Movement in South-East Turkey and one of the founders of the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê - PKK), after his paradigm shift in the late 1990s and 2000s (Flach, et al., 2016:36, 38). The Revolution of Rojava is often labelled as ‘Woman’s Revolution’ since it has the liberation of women at its heart and uses it as a starting point to simultaneously liberate men from the colonialist disparagement, as a consequence of patriarchy, capitalism and nation-statism (Dirik, 2014:19, Flach et al., 2016:61). Women in Rojava play an active and all-encompassing part in the organization of the revolution, but they are especially known for being part of the autonomous women’s protection units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin- YPJ) and for taking up arms themselves (Flach et al., 2016:61). The YPJ has been involved in the Syrian war, especially in an armed struggle against Daesh (also known as Islamic State - IS) and other Salafist-jihadist groups since 2013 and against the attacks and occupation of norther-west Syria by the Turkish state since the beginning of 2018 (Kongra Star, 28/06/2020:3). Nevertheless, the Kurdish feminist freedom movement defines itself as being anti-militarist and solely acting out of legitimate self-defence (Daudén, 2016, Dirik, 07/03/2017). 1.1. Problem Statement Liberal feminists have been criticizing the supposed paradox between the feminist and democratic approach of the women’s movement in Rojava and their violent resistance. Based on that, they have accused them of militarism (Daudén, 2016, Dirik, 07/03/2017). However, the Kurdish feminist activist, lawyer and ex-parliamentarian Ayla Akat Ata concisely responded to 4 this accusation: “in the context of life or death, non-violence is a privilege” (Daudén, 2016). The liberal notion of non-violence needs to be problematized, because it ignores “the intersecting power systems and mechanisms of structural violence” in the struggle of women in Kurdistan (Dirik 07/03/2017). Liberal feminists fail to make a distinction between “statist, colonialist, imperialist, interventionist militarism” and legitimate self-defence that is necessary (Ibid). Put bluntly, in an international system of sexual and racial violence, legitimized by capitalist nation-states, the cry for non-violence is a luxury for those in privileged positions of relative safety, believing that they will never end up in a situation where violence will become necessary. While theoretically sound, pacifism does not speak to the reality of masses of women and thus assumes a rather elitist first world character. (Ibid) Essentially, the white, middle-class standard in Europe is used as a universal norm. However, it is important to look away from universalized models when it comes to non-violent resistance, as it can be argued to constitute an attempt to erase the experiences and knowledges of, first and foremost, women in Rojava. Fanon criticized the Western understanding of non-violence already in the 1960s as a colonial tool in itself, used for the pacification of the colonized and to take away any epistemological argument for resisting the fabric of violence they experience in the context of hegemonic European imperialism (2004:23,28). In other words, liberal feminists are perpetuating epistemological and cultural violence when they are accusing women of the YPJ in Rojava of militarism. Therefore, we have to question the way we see and understand violent resistance here in Europe. That is not to say that violence is good, but we need to consider that there are discourses in which self-defence and resistance include a violent response when seen as necessary. 1.2. Research Aim and Research Questions Departing from the reasoning above, the focus of this paper is on the ideological, philosophical and political discourse of women’s liberation in the context of the feminist revolution of Rojava with specific attention to the armed self-defence within the YPJ and their logics. Essentially, a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) is used to outline the discourse of self-defence of the YPJ. The aim of this discursive study is to understand the self-defence of the YPJ from within the discourses of liberation in the feminist revolution of Rojava and better grasp how locally situated “intersecting power systems and mechanisms of structural violence” (Dirik 07/03/2017) influence this ideological, philosophical and political understanding of women’s 5 liberation in relation to armed self-defence. Therefore, the research question is as follows: How can one understand the armed self-defence of the YPJ in relation to the discourse of women’s liberation in the context of the revolution in Rojava? Since the study applies an FDA, the research question is consciously very wide as there is the need to be open to what one will find.
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