International Brigade Irmã Dorothy

In 2022 a Brazilian work brigade will go to Rojava with the the aim of defending the Revolution, working collectively to strengthen the international struggle for a free and communal life. It will be times of political debates, workshops, social and cultural activities and crafts within a cooperative and local village.

The International Brigade departing from Brazil also aims to bring learning, bring together the struggles of and increase knowledge about Rojava, strengthening internationalist ties. At the same time, comrades departing from Brazil recognize the importance of the support of comrades from all parts of the globe for the International Brigade at this moment in the history of the ongoing revolution.

The first challenge we have is to bear the high costs of air tickets. The tickets together cost EUR 4.550. That's our first goal. It is also the most important one, because it will guarantee the essential for the Brigade to take place, which are the fly tickets.

The second goal also includes an emergency fund for health and safety issues. It will be necessary a reserve resource for eventual emergencies around EUR 2.000.

So far, with the comrades in Brazil we’ve raised EUR 705 (R$ 3,375). The national campaign can be accessed here.

But where is Kurdistan and what is Rojava?

Over the past ten years, Rojava (an autonomous region located in the north-northeast portion of Syria) has stood out in the world with an exemplary alternative project put into practice. Amidst conflicts, wars, and crises in the Middle East, this project is being carried out both in northeastern Syria and in Western Kurdistan.

With the end of World War I, Western powers divided the Middle East according to their strategic interests leaving the Kurds and other ethnic groups without any land. Today, the Kurds form the largest stateless nation in the world: there are approximately 40 million Kurds living between Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Their customs, beliefs, language, and culture were banned. These are years of massacre, there have been more than seventy genocides and the Kurdish people are bravely resisting oppression, freeing occupied lands, defending themselves against ISIS and creating an autonomous administration.

Democratic Confederalism, the political and civil system of Rojava, was put in place in 2012, at a time when crisis and conflicts in the Middle East have intensified due to nationalism, racism, sexism, fundamentalism, and international capitalist forces. Rojava and its autonomous project based on women's freedom, radical democracy and ecology constantly suffer threats and violent attacks, mainly by the Turkish State. Rojava has been under embargo for more than nine years and regions such as Efrin, Serêkaniyê and Girê Spi have been invaded, occupied by Turkey and are under the threat of new attacks.

Despite being a war silenced by the international media, Rojava proved that it is possible to build an autonomous and dignified life with your own hands. This achievement stems from a process of revolution and resistance with a structural organization different from what we know in Western countries. And those who support the basis of this structure are the women. The people organized themselves into communes in their villages and neighborhoods and built their own administration from the bottom up. Despite the lack of resources, everyone is struggling to carry out green and energy projects, and the economy is being organized and developed to ensure that Rojava is self-supporting.

Rojava's social structure is based on the ideologies of Democratic Confederalism. Concept of a project by Kurdish leader and founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan. Öcalan describes the system of democratic self-organization based on principles such as multiculturalism, feminism, shared economy, ecologism, direct democracy, autonomism, self-management, and self-defense, with the aim of freeing the Kurdish people from the oppressions suffered and to propose a democratization for peoples all over the world.

In the history of oppressed peoples, solidarity and international support have always been fundamental in the struggle for freedom and resistance. Today, for example, solidarity, through international brigades, works in Cuba and Palestine, as they also acted in Spain in 1936, in Angola in 1975, in Vietnam in 1968 and elsewhere throughout history.

Be a contributor and make this project happen! Put solidarity into practice and get to know Rojava, the heart of the world. All amounts will be most welcome and necessary.

Long live the Rojava Revolution!