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The Mesopotamian Social Sciences Academy campus. Photo: Janet Biehl
By Dr Jan Best de Vries:
It’s a long trip to direct democracy, gender, ethnic, religious and economic equality and it will take generations to walk the road to Rojava. In the meantime its own population, like that of Bakur, will be exposed to slaughter by IS and Al Nusra, to genocide by the state of Turkey and to denial by Europe. But there is hope for the future of mankind as long as the painted names of YPG and YPJ are not removed from the mountain tops and Swedish and Polish girls in YPJ uniforms with their Kalasjnikovs patrol the mountains of Jazira. Not to speak of the many indigenous refugees who meanwhile have found shelter and safe havens to raise their children in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but who never will forget their roots in the land between the ancient rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates and who, albeit far away now, still support the revolution of Rojava and subsidize it.
The ridiculous fear of Islam paralyzing the 27 remaining states of the EU at the moment would vanish if its inhabitants would have met the imams in Rojava who are preaching peace in the name of the Quran: IS is not Islam. In Rojava there reigns freedom of religion. Muslims, Yezidis and Christians are all found in the ranks of the YPG and YPJ and are prepared to defend their common homeland and to die for it. How many Europeans would die for the EU?….
In Alice Springs my late soulmate and I once read billboards with the words, ‘Education is the way’. How true this is and therefore it is a criminal act that the Semalka border is closed by Mr Barzani to Dutch teachers which means that they cannot conduct classes at the Mesopotamia and Yekitiya Star academies in Jazira and at the university of Afrin. And even the Dutch government will not allow an educational delegation from Rojava to visit and at least become informed about an English teaching program in The Netherlands. Perhaps the UK may now do so, rather than a panicking EU member?
Dr. Jan Best de Vries is an archaeologist and historian, decipherer of the so-called Byblos Script from Aleppo and Alalakh (‘How to Decipher the Byblos Script’, Aspekt Publishers 2014, ISBN978-946-153-420-0)
