The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), its universities and self-governing institutions must be recognized as a guiding model for the transformation process of Syria.
Events in Syria are currently coming thick and fast. With the fall of the Assad regime, the opportunities for a new,democratic, pluralistic and decentralized Syria are open. However, we cannot trust the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamists who have become transitional rulers with fine-sounding promises. There is proven evidence that the Islamic State (ISIS) has factions in HTS and their misogynistic actions were part of their control of Syria. HTS is taking Taliban-oriented politics and strategies as a model. In parallel, the attacks by the Islamists of the National Syrian Army (NSA) and the Turkish state on the DAANES continue on a massive scale with the intention to destroy grassroots democracy and the women’s revolution. As an internationalist, decolonialist network of academics from different parts of the world including Chile, the USA, Canada, Japan, Lebanon, Syria and various European countries, we have come together to bring the important path of decolonizing academia back to the ground. We are developing a very practical work to break the isolation of the universities in North and East Syria. We have established five working groups and are preparing an online symposium on February 20, 2025 (more here: https://csua-paris.org/).
In our call for contributions for the symposium more than a month ago, we stated: “In the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), colonialism is as real and concrete as the falling bombs.
Decolonization is about undoing it. The practice of decolonizing knowledge must therefore be more than mere words and purely intra-academic discussion. Instead, the current situation calls for practical solidarity and political activism/actions against Turkey’s attacks and atrocities against DAANES, its universities and also against measures that undermine its international recognition and cooperation capacities.” (full text: https://csua-paris.org/online-symposium-2025) This is all the more significant as Turkey/NSA has now made serious advances against Shehba and the towns of Tall Rifaat) and Manbij in the west of the autonomous region.
Turkey is the biggest obstacle to peace, democracy and women’s rights in Syria. Turkey must not be allowed to prevent the self-government of DAANES from participating in upcoming negotiations. The search for a solution with freedom for all the different people living in Syria must be an inclusive democratic process. All segments of Syrian society, all ethnic and religious groups, and all genders must fully participate in the dialogue and decision-making for the future of Syria. This cannot be reduced to the mechanism of holding an election alone. The system of multi-ethnic and multireligious grassroots democracy that has been practiced in DAANES for more than a decade, and even more so a system in which women are represented in all bodies with a positive leadership role, can become an inspiring, exemplary model. The Islamist, misogynist organizations must not be allowed to dominate the restructuring process.
As we said in our recent call for contributions: “Particularly in the self-governed autonomous region in North and East Syria (NES), which also includes historical Rojava, the newly established universities are themselves participatory and democratic in their topics, methodologies and organizational structures. In a new and innovative way, the academic institutions in NES are combining theory and praxis as activist scholarship for the overall social processes of freedom and autonomy through women’s liberation, sustainable ecology and grassroots democracy”, the three universities of the NES Autonomous Administration, Rojava University (Qamislo), Kobane University (Kobane) and Al-Sharq University
(Raqqa), together with all other organizational structures, administrative bodies and councils of the self-organized society of DAANES, can and should play an important role in Syria’s transformation process. They must be internationally recognized as equal members of the global democratic community.
Universities of DAANES,Centre de Solidarité avec les Universités Alternatives (CSUA), Netzwerk kurdischer AkademikerInnen Kurd-Akad and the network “Decolonizing Knowledge and Science: Breaking Isolation and Weaving Solidarity with the Universities of North and East Syria/Rojava”
